Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory: Essays in Honor of Kevin Korsyn [1 ed.] 1032413727, 9781032413723

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Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory

Kevin Korsyn is a renowned music theorist, musicologist, and pedagogue who has taught at the University of Michigan since 1992. He has published widely and influentially in areas as diverse as Beethoven and Brahms studies, chromatic tonality, disciplinarity and metatheory, history of theory, musical meaning and hermeneutics, poststructuralism (deconstruction, intertextuality, etc.), and Schenkerian theory and analysis. Because of the scope and caliber of his published work, and also his legacy as a pedagogue, Korsyn has had a profound impact on the field of music theory, along with the related fields of historical musicology and aesthetics. This book, a festschrift for Korsyn, comprises essays that constellate around his numerous scholarly foci. Represented in the volume are not only familiar music-​theoretical topics such as chromaticism, form, Schenker, and text-​music relations, but also various interdisciplinary topics such as deconstruction, disability studies, German Idealism, posthumanism, and psychoanalysis. The book thus reflects the increasingly multifaceted intellectual landscape of contemporary music theory. Bryan Parkhurst is Associate Professor of Music Theory and Philosophy at Oberlin College and Conservatory, U.S.A. Jeffrey Swinkin is Associate Professor of Music (Theory) at The University of Oklahoma, U.S.A.

Routledge Research in Music

The Routledge Research in Music series is home to cutting-​edge, upper-​level scholarly studies and edited collections. Considering music performance, theory, and culture alongside topics such as gender, race, ecology, film, religion, politics, and science, titles are characterized by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics. Recent titles: Schubert’s Workshop: Volume 2 Mastery and Beyond Brian Newbould Musical Topics and Musical Performance Edited by Julian Hellaby Women in Convent Spaces and the Music Networks of Early Modern Barcelona Ascensión Mazuela-​Anguita The Intersection of Animation, Video Games, and Music Making Movement Sing Edited by Lisa Scoggin and Dana Plank Music, Place, and Identity in Italian Urban Soundscapes circa 1550–1860 Edited by Franco Piperno, Simone Caputo, and Emanuele Senici Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory Essays in Honor of Kevin Korsyn Edited by Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​Routle​dge-​Resea​rch-​in-​ Music/​book-​ser​ies/​RRM

Perspectives on Contemporary Music Theory Essays in Honor of Kevin Korsyn Edited by Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Parkhurst, Bryan, editor. | Swinkin, Jeffrey, editor. | Korsyn, Kevin Ernest, honoree. Title: Perspectives on contemporary music theory: essays in honor of Kevin Korsyn /​edited by Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin. Description: [1.] | Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2023. | Series: Routledge research in music | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023005720 (print) | LCCN 2023005721 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032413723 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032413730 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003357797 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Musical analysis. | Music theory. | LCGFT: Festschriften. Classification: LCC ML55. K7985 2023 (print) | LCC ML55 (ebook) | DDC 780.9–dc23/​eng/​20230207 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​202​3005​720 LC ebook record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​202​3005​721 ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​41372-​3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​41373-​0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​35779-​7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003357797 Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

List of Examples List of Contributors Introduction

vii xi 1

B RYAN PARKH U R ST A N D JEFFR EY SWI N K I N

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn

7

PART I

Close Reading and the Problematics of Analysis 1

Extraordinary Measures: Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”

25 27

H ARAL D K REBS

2

Rethinking Self-​Referentiality in Schubert’s Setting of Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” D. 751 (op. 23, no. 1)

52

RE NÉ RU S C H

3

The E-​flat/​B Complex in Nineteenth-​Century Music and Its Hermeneutic Dimensions

81

J E F F RE Y S WI N K I N A N D H AY LEY G R I G G

PART II

Compositional Constraints and Compositional Process 4

Take It Away: How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms AL AN G OS MA N

145 147

vi  Contents 5

“All-​Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint: Bach’s Fugue in G minor from Book 2 of The Well-​Tempered Clavier

162

E RI C WE N

PART III

Music and Interdisciplinarity

203

6

205

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman MI C H AE L L . K LEI N

7

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts: Unsiloing Art and Music in the Weimar Era

231

E L I Z AB E T H S EA R S

8

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy

260

B RYAN PARKH U R ST

9

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia

330

PAT RI C I A H ALL

Index

342

Examples

I.1 1 .1 1.2a 1.2b 1 .2c 1.3a 1.3b 1.4 1 .5a 1.5b 2.1 2.2 2.3 2 .4a 2.4b 2.5a 2.5b 2.6 2.7 2 .8 2.9a 2.9b

“Yes! We Have No Bananas,” with Text Underlay after Sigmund Spaeth (Spaeth 1926, 35–​36) Comparison of Colley Cibber’s and Craigher’s “The Blind Boy” Schubert’s Introduction Hypothetical Introduction with Sixteenth-​Note Displacement Removed Hypothetical Introduction with All Displacement Removed Hypothetical Setting of the First Stanza Schubert’s Setting of the First Stanza Schubert’s Setting of the Third Stanza, with Analysis of Metrical Dissonance Schubert’s Vocal Line in mm. 30–​31 Hypothetical Vocal Line for mm. 30–​31 Schubert’s “Moment Musical in A-​flat major,” D. 780 (op. 94), no. 6, mm. 1–​19 Schubert’s Setting of August von Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” D. 751 (op. 23, no. 1) Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen.” Pre-​published version. English translation by Deborah Stein (1989, 111) Truth as a Parergon Deception as a Parergon “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” Poetic Meter , Lines 1–​2 “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” Anticipated Poetic Meter, Stanza 1 Melos (babble) and Opsis (doodle) as Parerga Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen” from Vermischte Schriften (1822). Published Version. English Translation by Kristina Muxfeldt (1996, 481) Schubert, “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 7–​13 “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 5–​7 Recomposed (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 5–​7) “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 16–​18 Recomposed (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 16–​18)

12 35 38 40 40 41 41 43 44 44 53 54 59 59 59 61 61 62 63 65 67 68

viii  List of Examples 2.9c “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 8–​13 Recomposed as Part 2 of a Small Binary Theme (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 8–​13) 2.9d “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 8–​13 Recomposed as Part 2 of a Small Binary Theme, without the Textual Repetition (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 8–​13) 2.9e “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” m. 18 Recomposed (cf. Example 2.2, m. 18) 2.10a Two Readings of Platen’s Poem and Schubert’s Setting 2.10b Third Reading of Platen’s Poem and Schubert’s Setting. Deception and Truth Frame One Another 2.11 Diatonic, Chromatic, and Enharmonic Versions 3.1 Works Explored in this Chapter 3.2 A Hexatonic System (One of Four—​Cohn’s “Western Region”) 3.3 The SLIDE Transformation 3.4 Mozart, Trio in E-​flat, K. 498 (Kegelstatt), Synopsis of Mvt. 1 3.5 Isomorphism between PT/​TR and ST in Exposition of K. 498, Mvt. 1 3.6 Tonal and Narrative Scheme of Die Winterreise, Part II 3.7 Tonal Structure of Schubert, Impromptu in E-​flat, op. 90, no. 2 3.8 Schubert, op. 90, no. 2, mm. 157–​65 3.9 (A) Schubert, D. 929/​Mvt. 1, mm. 48–​58; (B) Mvt. 2, mm. 1–​6; (C) Mvt. 4, mm. 279–​85 3.10 Tonal Overview of Schubert, Piano Trio in E-​flat, D. 929, Exposition and Development of Mvt. 1 3.11 Analytical Sketch of Schumann, Symphony no. 3 in E-​flat, op. 97 (Rhenish), Mvt. 1 3.12 Tonal Overview of Schumann, op. 97 3.13 Three B-​major Themes in op. 97: (A) Mvt. 1: mm. 281–​285; (B) Mvt. 4: mm. 52–​60; (C) Mvt. 5: mm. 130 (pickup)–​37 3.14 A Motivic Network across op. 97 3.15 Liszt, Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-​flat: Formal, Thematic, and Tonal Overview 3.16 A Thematic Disguise 3.17 A Thematic Mediation 3.18 Analytical Graph of Finale (Allegro marziale animato) 3.19 Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust, Scene 11, Last Part of Marguerite’s Recitative 3.20 Gounod, Faust, “Jewel Song,” mm. 20–​29 3.21 Gounod, Faust, End of Final Trio 4.1 Mozart—​“Voi che sapete” from Le Nozze di Figaro, K. 492, mm. 9–​20 4.2 Beethoven, Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 12, No. 3, mvt. 3, Refrain Sections 4.2a Refrain 1, mm. 1–​39 (3 PACs in HK) 4.2b Beethoven, Op. 12, No. 3, Refrain 2, mm. 79–​94 (2 PACs)

69 70 71 72 72 75 82 84 85 87 89 92 96 96 98 100 107 108 110 112 114 118 119 120 122 125 126 148 149 149 150

List of Examples  ix 4 .2c Beethoven, Op. 12, No. 3, Refrain 3, mm. 163–​70 (1 PAC) 4.2d Beethoven, Op. 12, No. 3, Refrain 4, First Four Bars, mm. 226–​29 4.3 Sketch for Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, II, Refrain 1, Eroica Sketchbook, page 43, st. 10–​14; 5 PACs in C minor (Counting Repeats) 4.4 Sketches for Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, II, Refrain 2 and Entry of Fugue (Couplet 2), Eroica Sketchbook 4.4a Sketch Version 2; 3 PACs in C minor because No Repeats, page 53, st. 2–​6 4.4b Sketch Version 3, page 50 (Written after page 53), st. 6–​10; 2 PACs in C minor 4.4c Sketch Version 3 with Edits, page 50, st. 6–​7, st. 10b; 1 PAC in C minor 4.5 Op. 12, III and Op. 55, II Considered along Graham Hunt’s Continuum of Truncated Types of Second Refrains (With the Addition of Two New Categories for the First Columns) 4.6 Final Version of Passage, Measures 105–​16; 0 PACs in C minor 4.7 Formal Analysis of Op. 55, II 4.8 Haydn, Symphony No. 101, II, Couplets (Violin and Cello/​ Bass Parts) 4.8a Couplet 1, mm. 34–​62 (29 Bars; Transition +​Sentence Ending with PAC +​Retransition Ending with HC) 4.8b Couplet 2, mm. 97–​110 (14 Bars; Sentential Phrase Ending with HC/​Retransition Ending with HC) 4.8c Codetta, mm. 144–​50 (7 Bars; No Theme Type, No Cadence) 5.1 Invertible Counterpoint in G-​minor Fugue 5.2 Harmonization of N Figure in Fugue Subject 5.3 Possible Analysis of Fugue Subject 5.4 Subject vs Answer 5.5 Prolongation of G minor (Bars 5–​6) 5.6a Descending Fifths in Countersubject 5.6b Origin of Dotted Rhythm 5.7 Revised Analysis of Fugue Subject 5.8 Table of Fugal Entries 5.9 Tonicization of V in Answer 5.10 Analysis of Bars 5–​9 5.11 Analysis of Bars 9–​13 5.12 Hemiola in Bars 12–​13 5.13 Analysis of Bars 13–​17 5.14 Hemiola in Bars 16–​17 5.15 Analysis of Bars 20–​24 5.16 Consonant Support for 8–​7–​6 Motion 5.17 Analysis of Bars 28–​32 5.18 Invertible Counterpoint at the Tenth Reinverted at the Octave (Bars 32–​36)

150 150 152 153 153 154 154 155 155 156 158 158 159 159 163 164 164 165 165 165 165 166 167 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

x  List of Examples 5 .19 5–​6 Motion in Bar 32 5.20 Analysis of Bars 32–​36 5.21 Analysis of Bars 36–​40 5.22 Modulation from B-​flat to C minor 5.23 Parallel Tenths in Bars 40–​42 5.24 Descent from 5 to 4 (Bars 1–​45) 5.25 Origin of Thirds in Bars 45–​49 5.26 Analysis of Bars 45–​49 5.27 Episode 4 5.28 Origin of Sixths in Bars 51–​55 5.29 Analysis of Bars 51–​55 5.30 Hypothetical Version of Bars 55–​57 5.31 Succession of Diminished-​Seventh Chords (Bars 57–​58) 5.32 Hypothetical Version of Bars 56–​59 5.33 Enharmonic Change from Bn to Cf (Bars 56–​59) 5.34 III as Substitute for I6 5.35 Four Permutations of Invertible Counterpoint 5.36 Elaboration of Descending Tenths 5.37a Sequential Pattern Over Bars 59–​61 5.37b Analysis of Bars 59–​62 5.38 Hypothetical Closure in E-​flat (Bars 59–​63) 5.39 Bars 61ff Rewritten 5.40 Return to C minor (Bars 62–​64) 5.41 Descent from 4 to 2 (Bars 56–​67) 5.42 Avoidance of Final Cadence (Bars 67–​69) 5.43 Four Permutations of Invertible Counterpoint (Bars 69ff) 5.44 Auxiliary Cadence (Bars 69–​75) 5.45 Bars 67–​75 with Auxiliary Cadence 5.46 Middleground to Ursatz 6.1 Semiotic Square for Analysis of Chopin’s Preludes 6.2 Expanded Semiotic Square for Chopin’s Preludes 6.3 Opening of Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude 6.4 End of First Section of “Raindrop” Prelude 6.5 Opening of Middle Section of “Raindrop” Prelude 6.6 End of Middle Section of “Raindrop” Prelude 9.1a Windt’s Compositional Draft for the Prologue, Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin 9.1b Windt’s Compositional Draft for the Prologue, Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin 9.2 Themes 9.3 A1, Normal Speed 9.4 A1, Slow Motion 9.5 B1 and B2, Slow Motion 9.6 C1 through C4, Slow Motion 9.7 Men’s Diving Scene Synopsis

178 179 180 181 181 182 183 184 185 185 186 187 187 188 188 189 190 191 192 192 193 193 193 195 196 197 198 199 200 208 210 217 218 219 220 333 334 335 335 335 336 336 337

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Contributors

Alan Gosman is Associate Professor of Music Theory at University of Arkansas, U.S.A. Hayley Grigg is a D.M.A. candidate at The University of Oklahoma, U.S.A. Patricia Hall is Professor of Music Theory at the University of Michigan, U.S.A. Michael L. Klein is Professor of Music Studies at Temple University, U.S.A. Kevin Korsyn is Professor of Music Theory at the University of Michigan, U.S.A. Harald Krebs is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Music at the University of Victoria, Canada. Bryan Parkhurst is Associate Professor of Music Theory and Philosophy at Oberlin College and Conservatory, U.S.A. René Rusch is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Michigan, U.S.A. Elizabeth Sears is the George H. Forsyth Jr. Collegiate Professor of History of Art at the University of Michigan, U.S.A. Jeffrey Swinkin is Associate Professor of Music (Theory) at The University of Oklahoma, U.S.A. Eric Wen is on the faculty of The Curtis Institute of Music, U.S.A. and has previously taught at The Juilliard School, U.S.A.

Introduction Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin

The word “perspectives” is common in titles of academic works. But our use of it in the title of this festschrift for Kevin Korsyn is not perfunctory; we really mean it. Each article in this collection, in its own way, does something that Korsyn’s work is noted for doing: each reflects on the nature, conditions, and limitations of musical inquiry even as each inquires into music itself. Every contribution gathered here can be said to embody and convey a (metatheoretical) perspective on the scholarly and epistemic task that it sets for itself and executes. Self-​reflexivity is of course nothing new and nothing unusual in the humanities. It is possible that “postmodernity,” if it means anything at all, means a set of intellectual and cultural circumstances in which metatheory threatens to fully and irrevocably supplant first-​order theorizing: there are no more grand narratives, only critiques of grand narratives; the text has no outside; and so on. Be that as it may, critical self-​reflexivity was novel and exciting in (institutionalized, Anglophone) music theory when Korsyn burst onto the scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was among those who helped to shake the discipline out of what, in retrospect, can fairly (if harshly) be called a languorous state of methodological complacency. Early interventions such as “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence” and then the monograph Decentering Music (Korsyn 1991 and 2003, respectively) set what is probably an unsurpassed standard, in academic music theory, for thoroughgoing, and thoroughly enunciated, self-​ awareness. (Only that which is self-​conscious can properly be said to adopt a perspective, maybe.) What unifies Korsyn’s body of work is that all of it unsparingly interrogates its own ideological and historical antecedents and presuppositions. It is scholarship that is, explicitly and nontrivially, about (itself as) scholarship. Contemporary music theory is a house divided. As we see it, the major cleavage in the field today is not, as many would adamantly insist, a fundamentally political one—between, on the one hand, an old guard of conservatives who wish to defend the cultural legacy of Western Art Music, and, on the other hand, a vanguard of radicals who seek to advance the cause of equity and decolonize the canon (etc.). The real cleavage, which cuts across various political and ideological ruptures, is a schism between dogmatism and criticism—​that is, between absolute, unassailable certitude invested in this or that method or DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-1

2  Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin cause or program, and a countervailing, bracing epistemological anxiousness that derives, ultimately, from Kantian hand-​wringing about the very possibility of knowledge. (It is no coincidence that Korsyn’s first major article was about Kant and Schenker.) The divided house that is modern music theory contains both those for whom music theory is a “normal science” that has a more or less well-​defined and agreed-​upon job to do and set of appropriate tools for getting the job done (whether that job is to explain empirical musical phenomena, to transmit an appreciative reverence for “masterworks,” to advance the cause of reparative social justice, or something else), and “Korsynian” proponents of critical self-​reflection. We editors selected the authors of this volume because of their allegiance to the critical side of the criticism-​versus-​dogmatism contest, thus for their affiliation with the Korsynian esprit critique. Readers can gain a better sense of what that esprit is all about by reading the engaging interview with Korsyn that serves to open this volume. Korsyn’s characteristically candid, hard-​bitten (yet in some ways undisenchanted), and resolutely “dialectical” assessment of the musical and musicological landscape can be a hard pill to swallow, but it may be a necessary physic for the field’s health—its sanity, in the original sense of that word. Symbolic exegesis of one sort or another has never been entirely absent from music theory in any historical period. But the idea that hermeneutics, or some cardinal aspect of it, had been neglected or suppressed by postwar music scholars, and thus awaited recovery or restoration, was an animating conviction for many thinkers in the 1990s. Korsyn led this charge in music theory. In 1993, he opened his essay, “J. W. N. Sullivan and the Heiliger Dankgesang: Questions of Meaning in Late Beethoven” with a kind of neo-​hermeneutic credo: Even the positivist ideal of research, with its cult of objectivity and its demand for intellectual detachment, could not annihilate questions about the meaning of music. Banished to our private moments, such questions persisted, sustained by the expressive urgency of our musical experience. Today, the search for meaning has reclaimed its place in discourse about music; there is a movement to integrate the results of historical musicology and structural analysis with a new hermeneutics. (Korsyn 1993, 133) The first topical subsection of the volume, “Close Reading and the Problematics of Analysis,” contains essays by Harald Krebs, René Rusch, and Jeffrey Swinkin and Haley Grigg; all work within the “neo-​hermeneutic” groove that Korsyn helped to carve out. Socrates called his philosophical method maieutikos (midwifery) because it served to draw forth and develop the nascent, only half-​ formed and half-​acknowledged commitments of his interlocutors. The essays in this section are united by a penchant for employing music analysis as a form of maieutics: they induce musical works to “give birth” to various verbally articulable meanings—​to semantic progeny—​that then take on an autonomous life of their own.

Introduction  3 In “Extraordinary Measures: Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s ‘Der blinde Knabe’,” Harald Krebs examines nuances of metric and rhythmic structuring in Schubert’s Lied and shows how these formal parameters become invested with novel, and heightened, significance when considered from the perspective of disability studies. Krebs’s analytical reading is enriched by his consideration of the provenance and translation history of the poem Schubert sets. By probing the song’s temporal complexities, Krebs educes from “Der blinde Knabe” a distinctively ethical message, one that addresses itself to contemporary sensibilities and concerns of justice: the message that disability is not to be regarded as having a negative status “as deficit,” but instead as having a positive status “as difference, at which we are invited to look upon in awe.” René Rusch’s contribution, “Rethinking Self-​referentiality in Schubert’s Setting of Platen’s ‘Die Liebe hat gelogen,’ D. 751 (op. 23, no. 1)” is, one might say, meta-​self-​reflexive: it places critical distance between itself and its own music-​analytical exploration of the phenomenon of musical self-​reference. Rusch draws sustenance from poststructuralist thought, employing Derrida’s concept of a “parergon,” an adjacency that is strictly external to the art object proper, but that conditions the subject’s experience of the object’s internality. (A portrait’s frame serves as a familiar example.) As she delves into Schubert’s harmonic praxis and approach to text setting, Rusch asks us to attune ourselves both to the fundamental instability or precariousness of the aesthetic claims that Schubert’s song makes on its own behalf (such as its insistence on its own stable self-​enclosedness and autonomy) and also to the contrastingly protean nature of the self-​image that the song’s poet-​protagonist projects. Rusch then extends the circle of precarity so that it also includes Rusch’s own music-​ analytical argumentation, and music-​analytical discourse in the large. This highly self-​conscious analytical and meta-​analytical narrative spiral creates a recursive Spiegel im Spiegel in which one catches a glimpse of the figure of Korsyn, one of the first to appreciate the suggestiveness of poststructuralist thought for music-​theoretical issues. Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg, in “The E-​flat/​B Complex in Nineteenth-​ Century Music and its Hermeneutic Dimensions,” show us how, as the old saying has it, mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow. Beginning with what may seem to be a quotidian music-​formal descriptor, “the E-​flat/​B complex”—​ simply the juxtaposition of those two notes, chords, or keys—​they build a sweeping historical and exegetical narrative that, notwithstanding the inspiring ambitiousness of its scope, remains firmly anchored in close readings of works by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Berlioz, and Gounod. One key agenda item for Swinkin and Grigg is to use the idea of the E-​flat/​B complex to mark out a breach separating the Classical ethos from the Romantic ethos in music. They make the case that, in Classical works, the presence of the E-​flat/​B complex functions as a tonal puzzle to which composers provide definitive, statable, satisfying solutions. Romantic works, by contrast, treat the tonal problem posed by the complex as a more troubling or intractable contradiction, a destabilizing antinomy whose self-​transcending energies cannot be fully contained.

4  Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin Swinkin and Grigg then show how this Romantic compositional perspective gets entwined with such parameters as evocative titles, song texts, programmatic content, and historical circumstances to weave a rich tapestry of possible meanings and extramusical associations. The chapters by Eric Wen and Alan Gosman in “Compositional Constraints and Compositional Process,” Part II of the volume, both regard musical compositions as sites of compositional activity; the analyst enters into musical compositions as, first and foremost, arenas in which musical goals are pursued, musical skills are exercised, and musical difficulties are confronted and overcome. It is fitting that this “practical” (in the sense of “practice-​centered”) approach to music theory and analysis should be featured in this festschrift, given Korsyn’s wide reputation as a consummate “practical” musician—​a keyboardist and contrapuntist par excellence. (On the latter vocation, see his “At the Margins of Music Theory, History, and Composition: Completing the Unfinished Fugue in Die Kunst der Fuge by J. S. Bach”). And perhaps it is not improbable that this volume would seat praxis, deservedly, on a throne, given that several of its contributors (including Gosman) studied counterpoint and tonal composition with Korsyn at the University of Michigan. In “Take It Away: How Shortened and Missing Refrains Energize Rondo Forms,” Alan Gosman’s point of departure is an aesthetic challenge inherent to a formal genre: rondo forms, because of their inbuilt melodic repetitiousness, always court the danger of sounding monotonous. How do Classical composers avoid this pitfall, when they do? Gosman shows that certain extraordinary applications of ordinary methods of fending off melodic tedium and “energizing” the rondo form—​ including embellishing melodies, truncating refrains, and eliminating expected formal units—​can sometimes radically transform the rondo, not just cosmetically enhance it. In the second movement of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, the transformation wrought by Beethoven’s rondo enhancement surgery is so prounounced that the final product no longer counts as a standard rondo. Eric Wen synthesizes and reconciles two apparently opposed analytical perspectives in “Beyond Constraints: Bach’s Fugue in G minor from Book 2 of The Well-​Tempered Clavier.” One of these perspectives privileges close scrutiny of the stupendous amount and variety of contrapuntal artifice that Bach deploys in this fugue, and the other perspective conceives of the work as organized according to deep-​level voice-​leading structures. Wen shows more than that Bach’s surface-​level contrapuntal wizardry is consistent with the presence of an abstract background structure of the sort that Schenkerian analysis is designed to reveal. More than this, he shows that exhaustive comprehension of the fugue’s counterpoint techniques is necessary for disclosing the secret of its underlying structural hierarchy, since the complexities of invertible counterpoint may, if not adequately grasped, impede the recognition of familiar, paradigmatic voice-​leading configurations. In Part III, “Music and Interdisciplinarity,” the authors stage encounters between music theory and other areas of the humanities, including

Introduction  5 poststructuralist literary theory (Michael Klein), cultural history (Elizabeth Sears), the history of philosophy (Bryan Parkhurst), and multimedia studies (Patricia Hall). Michael Klein’s chapter, “Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman,” positions contemporary music theory against the backdrop of Lacan’s distinction between humanist and posthumanist conceptions of subjectivity. After a biographical prelude that traces the impact of Korsyn’s work on Klein’s career-​ long engagement with critical theory, Klein turns to the soundtrack of the film Prometheus. He finds in its use of Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude a key to unlocking the film’s exploration of posthumanist themes. Klein’s perusal of the film’s ideological signifiers is supplemented by and coordinated with a survey of the historical genesis and environmental-​ ecological context of Chopin’s prelude, disclosing ways in which the piece itself may be heard to project posthumanist subjectivity. Elizabeth Sears carries out an interdisciplinary inquiry into the history of interdisciplinarity in “Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts: Unsiloing Art and Music in the Weimar Era.” This chapter introduces us to Riezler’s philosophical defense of aesthetic modernism, grounded in an experimental effort to align the histories of music and art through parallel shifts in the “sense of space” (Raumgefühl). Some readers may have a passing familiarity with Riezler the musicologist from his biography of Beethoven, which was translated into English in 1938. But few will have great familiarity with Riezler’s life or intellectual trajectory (German-​language sources of information about him are scant, and English-​language sources are nonexistent), and fewer still will have had any exposure to the ideas of Riezler the philosopher of aesthetics. Sears surveys Riezler’s life and thought and provides paraphrases and translations of key passages from Riezler’s neglected minor masterpiece, “The New Sense of Space in Visual Art and Music.” In detailing the vicissitudes of Riezler’s career as an advocate of cross-​disciplinary research and a defender of the unity of the arts, and in making his philosophical ideas accessible to a musicological readership, Sears performs the type of discipline-​synthesizing investigation that Riezler himself dedicated his life to advancing. In “Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy,” Bryan Parkhurst continues, and attempts to finalize, an exegetical project begun by Korsyn in his 1988 Theoria article, “Schenker and Kantian Epistemology” (Korsyn 1988), which finds connections between Schenker and philosophical materials hailing from Kant’s first Critique (of “pure reason”). This project was later extended by Parkhurst in “Making a Virtue of Necessity: Schenker and Kantian Teleology,” which broadened the scope of comparison to Kant’s third Critique (of the “power of judgment”). Here, Parkhurst “completes the triad” by plumbing Kant’s remaining, second Critique (of “practical reason”), and other supporting documents of Kant’s practical philosophy, to discover Kantian rationales for Schenkerian convictions. Chief among these is an ethical view on which, according to Parkhurst, Schenker’s entire system rests: the view that “synthesis” is the morally obligatory rational acknowledgment of the

6  Bryan Parkhurst and Jeffrey Swinkin “end-​status” of tones. Although, as Parkhurst shows, this view is indefensible on orthodox Kantian grounds, there may be some hope of philosophically vindicating Schenker as a post-​Kantian thinker. In the final chapter of this volume, “Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Ballet’ Olympia,” Patricia Hall allows the choreographic and musical dimensions of film to illuminate one another. Herbert Windt’s score to the film Olympia, Hall shows, is an act of “reverse choreography,” in which the soundtrack is minutely correlated with already-​existing film footage of an olympic diving event. Hall inspects the formal structure and rhythmic design of Windt’s thematic material to show how his music maps onto the visual form and rhythm of the olympians’ dives. As she closely attends to the marriage of sound and image in Olympia, Hall invites Riefenstahl’s own reflections on the film to guide and inflect the music-​ analytical account. The wide scope and diversity of the essays collected here, the kaleidoscopic array of perspectives that they collectively put forward, will, we hope, encourage readers to reflect critically on the scope and diversity of music theory itself. What is music theory, in 2023, for the sake of? What is its telos? We are at a crossroads—​hopefully it isn’t the end of the road!—​where many answers to that question that used to seem credible, or at least nonridiculous, now seem strained, or doddering, or strident, or even indecent. Readers hoping for clear and confident answers to questions about contemporary music theory’s ends and means will not find many, or any, in this book. But they will find provocative lines of inquiry, genuine musical and humanistic curiosity, and exploratory, nondogmatic approaches to and attitudes toward theorizing music—​challenges, not answers. The former are preferable to the latter, we insist, since challenges, unlike answers, aren’t the sorts of things that it is even (logically or psychologically) possible to accept dogmatically. Challenges invite—​demand—​­critical replies. Kant said it well: “ ‘Sapere aude! Have courage to make use of your own understanding!’ is thus the motto of enlightenment.” Bibliography Korsyn, Kevin. 1988. “Schenker and Kantian Epistemology.” Theoria: Historical Aspects of Music Theory 3: 1–​58. —​—​—​. 1991. “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence.” Music Analysis 10, nos. 1/​2: 3–​72. —​—​—​. 1993. “J. W. N. Sullivan and the Heiliger Dankgesang: Questions of Meaning in Late Beethoven.” Beethoven Forum 2. Edited by Lewis Lockwood and James Webster, 133–​74. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. —​—​—​. 2003. Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2016. “At the Margins of Music Theory, History, and Composition: Completing the Unfinished Fugue in Die Kunst der Fuge by J. S. Bach.” Music Theory and Analysis 3, no. 2: 115–​44.

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn

We, the editors, thought it would be interesting for readers to hear from the dedicatee of this volume himself. We posed several questions to Kevin Korsyn and asked him to respond. Our correspondence unfolded as follows. Editors: In Decentering Music, you offered a sobering critique of the discipline of musicology and of the relations among, and the schisms separating, its three primary subdisciplines—​ music theory, historical musicology, and ethnomusicology. At the time, you heard them speaking different dialects, as it were, and often working at cross purposes. That was almost two decades ago (2003). Do you feel that the dynamic among these fields has changed in the interim? How has your critical stance evolved over the years? Kevin Korsyn M  y book Decentering Music is a critique of musicology as an (KK): institutional discourse, analyzing the struggle for the cultural authority to write about music under the regime of late capitalism, in which the postmodern fracturing of our individual and collective identities exists alongside an opposite impulse toward conformity and a counterfeit consensus in a commodified world. You refer to academic factions “speaking different dialects” and “working at cross purposes,” but this captures only one pole of the dialectic I envisioned; the lack of a common language or value system through which to represent musical experience, which I called the Tower of Babel, is shadowed by a drive toward abstract uniformity that I called the Ministry of Truth, in which cultural differences become marketable commodities, and knowledge is reduced to its exchange value in the managed university. The increasing fragmentation of language in the Tower of Babel reflects the divided nature of identity today. As Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have shown, society is no longer structured around a central struggle such as that of the people versus the ancien régime; we now encounter DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-2

8  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn “an irreducible plurality of struggles,” and participate in multiple and overlapping groups—​defined by race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, occupational status, and other factors—​that have no central core. The false universality of the Ministry of Truth reflects a world increasingly based on corporatist values, in which the professionalization of the humanities threatens to turn research into a self-​referential product. Laclau and Mouffe have developed the concept of “social antagonism” to analyze the conflicts of postmodern life; antagonisms are divisions in social space that cannot be fully represented or symbolized because “the presence of the Other prevents me from being totally myself ” (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 125). The “decentering” in the title of my book refers first of all to these contradictions of postmodern life. (I was delighted when the editor of Decentering America cited my book as a precedent for the essays in that collection [Gienow-​Hecht 2007, 6].) The academic discourses that discipline music inevitably register these contradictions, bearing the scars of social antagonisms while also trying to mask them. For musicologists, antagonisms can generate anxiety as they encounter cultural double binds, moments when individuals are caught between different communities and languages that both refuse—​ and yet somehow demand integration. In ethnomusicology, for example, such cases may arise when the history of colonialism contaminates the very methodology through which one studies oppressed cultures, leaving one without a language in which to engage the other while feeling a disciplinary imperative that one must engage the other. (Korsyn 2003, 49) Philip Bohlman’s discussion of Islamic chant provides an excellent case study for this; in listening to the recitation of the Quran, he feels a tension between the desire to treat these sounds as aesthetic objects and recognizing that this cantillation is a form of divine communion that does not fall under the Western category of music (ibid., 161). There is an impasse that Bohlman feels keenly but cannot overcome: “The disciplinary object is characterized by a fundamental split, producing a corresponding split in the subject” (ibid., 162). From the perspective of these radical fissures in society, Decentering Music was not a critique of the errors or failures of individual scholars; I had bigger fish to fry, because I was trying to understand how academic discourses can channel the collective impulses of the social imaginary. The works

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  9 that I analyzed exemplified the most innovative and imaginative work in musical scholarship at the turn of the millennium, and I chose only writers I admire, including Kofi Agawu, Philip Bohlman, Suzanne Cusick, Steven Feld, Wayne Koestenbaum, Ellen Koskoff, Lawrence Kramer, David Lewin, Susan McClary, Manuel Peña, Kay Kaufman Shelemay, Rose Rosengard Subotnik, and others. I began by immersing myself in their work, describing it in terms that I hoped would seem fair to them, that they would consider a responsible account of their methods and intentions, trying to do justice to the way they see themselves. As these exegeses progressed, however, I would not only disclose conflicts between opposing schools of thought, but more importantly, I analyzed how such conflicts can mask moments of blockage or contradiction within each position. These contradictions are not the result of logical inconsistencies or errors on the part of the authors; they are the product of our world, of a fractured society, in which we may be alienated from our own knowledge. Consider, for example, Kay Kaufman Shelemay’s attempt to understand “the Syrian Jewish self as expressed in music” through her study of the pizmonim, paraliturgical hymns in which Hebrew texts are written to preexisting melodies. A constant theme of her book is the power of the pizmonim to bridge social differences, connecting old and young, Arab and Jew, past and present, the mundane and the sacred, the new world and the old. There is one jarring episode in her narrative, however, that presents a startling contrast to the celebratory tone of the book. She describes her encounter in the ladies’ room with two young girls “during [a]‌long evening of revelry and music-​making”; they are the granddaughters of Moses Tawil, one of her key informants and a leading composer of pizmonim. “Aren’t you having fun?” she asks them. “No,” one of them replies; “we’re bored. It’s not our music” (Shelemay 1998, 94; Korsyn 2003, 73). This event seems like a potential fly in the ointment, causing us to reevaluate everything that has been said about the healing power of the pizmonim, but she reports it without comment and without exploring any of its wider implications. In my essay “The Aging of the New Musicology,” I tried to amplify the voices that are marginalized in her account, including those of the two girls who said they were bored: Shelemay may even overlook an important affinity between herself and the two girls, since she shares their social position as someone who is at the boundaries of Syrian Jewish culture. She is the diligent outsider, the careful student who

10  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn knows she will always be outside the culture, however carefully she studies it. They have the insider’s knowledge that she lacks, but have assumed a distance to their own culture, and for reasons left unexplored in Shelemay’s book, they do not identify wholly with Halabi music or recognize themselves in it. This is what I mean when I say we risk being alienated from our own knowledge as well as that of others. There is something about Shelemay’s double position as an outsider/​insider that she shares with these two girls and yet disavows, along with the potential insight into her own divided experience that this insight might yield. (Korsyn 2011, 18) Since these social contradictions have not gone away, we should not expect musicology to transcend them. We can learn, however, to manage them better; in Decentering Music I recommended “substitut[ing] a conscious and deliberate alienation from our own language for the unconscious and disavowed alienation that prevails today” (Korsyn 2003, 164). Editors:

That makes a lot of sense. Musicology, as with probably any academic discipline today, cannot help but reflect (and also contribute to) these wider cultural problematics. Now, can we talk about music analysis more specifically? A criticism that has often been levelled against analysis by the New Musicology and its latter-​day avatars is that the methodologies that inform analysis tend to perpetuate the allegedly reactionary ideologies of organicism and “German idealism,” to construct insupportable “grand narratives,” and also to promote European cultural (and also white racial) supremacy. This being the case, detractors say, music analysis as a form of scholarly inquiry is not, and cannot be, consonant with the liberal ideals of plurality and diversity; with the basic datum that music (which should not be thought reducible to works of music) harbors multiple socially constructed meanings; with the recognition that music is a locus of différance and alterity (etc.); or, finally, with the widespread rejection of “positivism” or “reification” or “identity thinking” in the humanities. How do you square “structural” analysis, or any analysis at all, with that critical ethos, or do you?

KK:

Having to decide between the atemporal analysis of musical structures and the historical contextualism of the New Musicology is a Hobson’s choice, because there is an underlying complicity to both sides in this debate; both regard the distinction between text and context as stable and self-​identical and

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  11 simply privilege different poles of the duality. In Decentering Music I showed how the “grand narratives” and “reactionary ideologies” that some have detected in music analysis also seem to permeate the works of writers who are often associated with the New Musicology, including Susan McClary, Lawrence Kramer, and others; in responding to their work, I showed how “the narrative level may contradict the explicit assertions in the text” (Korsyn 2003, 66). McClary’s influential book Feminine Endings, for example, reproduces a narrative archetype that M. H. Abrams called “unity, unity lost, and unity-​to-​be-​regained,” a pattern that echoes the Christian view of history as beginning and ending in a state of grace with a fall into sin in the middle (Abrams 1971, 181); Abrams has explored how romantic authors adapted such sacred narratives to the needs of a secular age. Her notion of a “general crisis” in the late-​sixteenth or early-​ seventeenth century suggests an original state of innocence followed by precipitous decline; as “the musical principles responsible for Renaissance harmonia are defiantly ruptured,” the emerging ethos is characterized by “passionate manipulation,” “aggressive rhetorical gestures,” and “the illusion of narrative necessity” (McClary 1991, 120). In this phase of her narrative, music has an ambivalent potential, because she sees this as the first attempt to represent gender and sexuality in music. However, in the next phase, in my paraphrase, “music went to hell in a handbasket, as masculine images of desire, embodied in the propulsive thrust of tonality, won out over the representation of feminine sexuality” (Korsyn, 2003, 133). In her fourth phase, we see the sort of reconciliation of opposites that pervade romantic narratives of unity lost and regained, as female musicians recover feminine images of pleasure (ibid.). McClary’s idea of a “general crisis” in the late-​sixteenth or early-​ seventeenth century parallels T. S. Eliot’s idea that a split between intellect and emotion, which he called “a dissociation of sensibility,” led to a degeneration of English poetry in the seventeenth century. Christopher Norris has analyzed the contradictions of Eliot’s historical scheme, showing that “his avowed antipathy to Romanticism goes along with a covert adherence to its whole working system of evaluative terms and categories” (Norris 1988, 117). In Decentering Music I found similar contradictions in McClary’s work: Since the historical scheme she adopts is by no means her own invention but has a history of its own, it may have a potential to escape her control and to produce implications

12  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn

Example I.1 “Yes! We Have No Bananas,” with Text Underlay after Sigmund Spaeth (Spaeth 1926, 35–​36)

at odds with her avowed intentions and her own politics. Significantly, Eliot’s thesis betrays a covert (and deeply conservative) political agenda, one that was nurtured by his reading of French reactionary [political] thinkers, including Charles Maurras, for whom the order of hierarchical and authoritarian institutions represents a condition for writing great literature. This nostalgia for a vanished hierarchy appealed to the agrarian ideology of the predominantly Southern New Critics. By valorizing “ideals of harmony, balance, stability,” and “images of Renaissance harmonia” over individual assertion, McClary’s argument could be read as an endorsement of hierarchy, despite her general tendency to link hierarchy to masculine authority. Significantly, she does not examine any medieval or Renaissance music, but simply uses it as a foil to the later music she discusses. Nor, despite her general refusal to accept cultural phenomena at face value, does she ask whether these “images of ... harmonia” are to be taken as read. (Korsyn 2003, 132) I have been just as alert to the aporias and paradoxes of the work of music analysis and its tendency to fetishize the unity and autonomy of the individual composition. To jumpstart my discussion of this point, I used a facetious example that I called the Sigmund Spaeth Principle. Spaeth provided a witty text underlay to the popular song “Yes, We Have No Bananas!” (Example I.1) to show that it appears to cobble together the beginning of the “Hallelujah” Chorus with a snippet from “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” (Spaeth 1926, 35–​36). Although obviously meant in jest, it reveals a profound truth about attempts to confirm the unity and identity of a composition by establishing its motivic logic and economy: the same motives that lend internal motivic coherence to a piece can also lead outside the work, evoking other contexts, and recalling what Roland Barthes called the déjà lu, the already read (Korsyn 2003, 97–​98), or in this case, the déjà entendu, the already heard. Spaeth anticipates Derrida’s notion of “iterability.”

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  13 For signs to be understood, they must be repeatable, but the “spacing” between signs that allows them to be repeated also makes it possible for them to be detached from their original contexts, opening the door to an infinite intertextuality (Derrida 1987, 107). The Sigmund Spaeth Principle gave Heinrich Schenker nightmares, because he understood that it threatened the foundations of his theory and his attempt to establish the unity and coherence of individual compositions. In Schenker’s mature theory, a composition has a connected melodic structure in which all diminutions in the upper voice are connected to the Urlinie through a process of mental retention; for Schenker, this alone guarantees organic unity. It also enables him to invest the simplest and most common voice-​leading phenomena, including passing motions, neighbor notes, and arpeggiations, with a profound new significance, because details that appear in the foreground can be composed out at the middleground levels. Schenker made persistent attempts to police the boundaries of compositions by denying the legitimacy of what Wilhelm Tappert called “wandering melodies.” In his 1868 book Wandernde Melodien: eine musikalische Studie, Tappert wrote that “melodies wander … they are the most tireless tourists on earth,” and traced similar melodic ideas that seem to recur across a wide variety of pieces (Tappert 1868, 5). Schenker devoted considerable energy to refuting this idea, trying to radically differentiate legitimate motivic connections that are attached to the fundamental line within a piece from accidental resemblances (Korsyn 2003, 98–​100). If he were to accept motivic relationships that are not so attached, it would pave the way to saying that all neighbor notes and all arpeggiations in every piece are connected. As I showed in Decentering Music, however, the rigor and consistency with which Schenker patrols the borders of pieces leaves him with no way to account for trans-​ movemental relationships that would be consistent with his theory. His analysis of Beethoven’s Third Symphony, for example, which is arguably his single most ambitious graphic representation of a piece, treats all four movements separately and never explains any connections among them; ironically, his own principles force him to treat the four movements as if they were merely mechanically and not organically related. One of the larger goals of my work has been to reconfigure the disciplines of historical musicology and music theory by exploding the text/​context distinction on which both depend, as I explained in my contribution to Rethinking Music:

14  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn Conceiving text and context as a stable opposition promotes a compartmentalization of musical research, dividing the synchronic analysis of internal structure from the diachronic narratives of history. Music analysis treats pieces as closed, static entities, open to history only at the level of abstract paradigms (such as formal archetypes). Since analytical techniques have been developed primarily with respect to autonomous compositions, even music historians, when they analyze music, must use “internal” methods of analysis, as if the piece were created outside time and parachuted into history. Thus we inhabit a conceptual space ruled by metaphors of “inside” and “outside.” You are either “inside” the piece, securing its boundaries through “internal” analysis, or you are “outside,” mapping its position with respect to other closed units. You can alternate between inside and outside perspectives, tilting like a seesaw, but you can’t occupy both positions at once. The trouble with such oppositions, as Jacques Derrida has shown, is that they create “a hierarchy and an order of subordination” (Derrida 1982). One side of the opposition dominates or controls the other. (Korsyn 1999, 55) The change in perspective that I have been advocating is to recognize that text and context interdefine each other; in Decentering Music, I suggested “a certain Moebius-​strip logic through which inside and outside, content and frame, mutually determine each other. Both text and context are constructed rather than given” (Korsyn 2003, 124). For me, one path toward understanding this Moebius-​strip logic in constructing text and context and avoiding identity thinking has been to adopt a dialectical approach in which reflection on the methods of analysis becomes part of the process. Frederic Jameson has described dialectics as thought to the second power, a thought about thinking itself, in which the mind must deal with its own process just as much as with the material it works on in which both the particular content involved and the style of thinking suited to it must be held together in the mind at the same time. (Jameson 1971, 45) In Decentering Music I call this “second-​ order analysis” (Korsyn 2003, 39); rather than taking the identity of musical objects as a given, I try to rethink the relationship between text and context, to understand the conditions of possibility for

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  15 framing musical events in particular ways. Rather than analyze “the music itself,” I focus on analyzing the analyses. In my study of the Chopin Preludes, for example, I tried to understand what generates the cycle of intense disagreements about the ontological status of this collection (ibid., 100–​23). Editors:

You have made a lasting intellectual mark by deftly navigating two distinct—​some might say, oppositional—​scholarly identities. On the one hand, you are a devoted “close-​reader” and compendiously knowledgeable exegete of the technical aspects of the common-​practice corpus (and your ability to play almost any standard work extempore is the stuff of legend among those who have studied with you). On the other hand, your thinking has been significantly shaped by poststructuralism, and this has led you to play the role of a kind of Socratic gadfly who ceaselessly interrogates, both in the classroom and in print, the dogmatic presuppositions of music analysis, canon formation, “knowledge production,” and so forth. In essays such as “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence,” you bring both stances into close proximity, in ways that many find compelling, but that others have criticized as self-​contradictory. Do you think there is a contradiction and, if so, do you embrace it?

KK:

It is a mistake to think that the novel methods associated with poststructuralism constitute a rejection of the practice of close reading or a denial of the coherence of language. On the contrary, it would be difficult to find a more exacting or painstaking reader than Jacques Derrida, who has devoted immense energy to the exegesis of canonical works of philosophy, including those by Plato, Hegel, Kant, and others. My attempt to experiment with new modes of understanding music and to challenge the self-​contained organic work does not by any means conflict with a practice of close attention to aural details or structural relationships. Here’s how I previously explained this position: Although intertextuality may resemble a conspiracy to deny all unity and coherence, such fears are misplaced. When Francis Barker, for example, calls Hamlet “a contradictory, transitional text,” it does not suddenly degenerate into nonsense; the words remain comprehensible; a line such as “I am but mad north-​north-​west” does not suffer a sea-​change, mutating into “colorless green ideas sleep furiously,” Logical or grammatical coherence is not the issue. It is a question of acknowledging other unities, other sources of coherence, that may cut across and subvert those we have been trained to recognize. (Korsyn 2003, 38)

16  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn The traditional practice of musical analysis has tended to concentrate on what we might call grammatical unities, analogous to the unity of a sentence. The thinkers who have inspired me to expand the horizons of musical analysis were concerned with other types of unity, including Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the “utterance”; unlike the sentence, which is an abstract unity that remains the same when repeated in other contexts, utterances are unrepeatable events; repeating an utterance creates a new utterance. My search for these other units of meaning evolved through a series of stages and continues to evolve. During my Sturm und Drang period I briefly fell under the spell of Harold Bloom’s theory of the anxiety of influence and became interested in tracing musical influence as a conversation between one composer and another (Korsyn 1991). I soon realized that as important as this personal dialogue is, it does not exhaust the full spectrum of relationships among musical events, and I began to explore what Bakhtin called “the anonymous destinies of discourse,” and the “impersonal memory of genre” (Korsyn 1993, 1996, 1999). This too began to seem inadequate, because I began to see the interdependence between our analytical methods and our perception of musical events; as Michael Baxandall said of art history, “we do not explain pictures: we explain remarks about pictures—​or rather, we explain pictures only insofar as we have considered them under some verbal description or specification” (Baxandall 1985, 1). The intertextual field has to include the way that musical events are framed by our explanatory models; thus the project of Decentering Music came into focus. All of these concerns have involved trying to integrate history more intimately into music analysis, rather than seeing historical musicology and music theory as relatively independent processes. Gradually this interest in history began to extend to what Adorno called “real history itself, with all its suffering and all its contradiction” (Adorno 2002, 147). The history of the arts has often been conceived as a series of innovations in technique, and it is fatally easy to write the history of music in this way. My subversive analysis of trauma and repressed memories in Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony was an attempt to connect music history to real history (Korsyn 2009). Editors:

How about your own real history? Can you tell us about your musical background and early training, and how it led you to relate to music in myriad ways—​as a theorist, composer, pianist, literary theorist, and so on? Do you feel that official institutions of musical education, as they currently exist, are necessarily hostile to such versatility?

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  17 KK:

My early musical training made me distrust authority because I could not find teachers who could deal with such a headstrong pupil; for years I was essentially self-​taught, with all the advantages and drawbacks of that condition. I could also see the dangers of the sort of compartmentalized instruction that is still prevalent in American life; the teachers I encountered were rarely comfortable outside their relatively narrow pedagogical specializations. My piano teacher in first grade was a Roman Catholic nun named Sister Alberta; she was quite wonderful and recognized my talent from the moment I touched a keyboard. Unfortunately she was soon transferred to another school without any warning or explanation; her replacement was a dour and strict disciplinarian out of central casting. When I started adding counterpoints to the tedious pedagogical pieces she assigned me, she became furious, insisting that I should play only what was notated. I was incorrigible, however; even at that age I was improvising counterpoint; no one taught me how to do this. After that I went through a series of mediocre teachers, stubbornly ignoring their advice, without finding anyone who inspired my confidence. For a while I even quit my lessons entirely. Finally my mother’s friend Morris Henken, who was a violinist and conductor, suggested that I study with Walter Burle Marx, a Brazilian composer, pianist, and conductor whose teachers included Felix Weingartner, James Kwast, Tobias Matthay, and Emil von Reznicek. Marx took me under his wing and essentially made me part of his family; our lessons would go on for hours, and he eventually told me that he would teach me for free. He also introduced me to a number of distinguished musicians, including his best friend, the great pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski; they had known each other since 1909 when they were both child prodigies. Mr. Horszowski, who would often play chamber music at Mr. Marx’s house, became one of my early mentors; it was through Burle Marx and his circle that I finally discovered role models and saw what is possible. Rudolf Serkin was also part of this network, and I was privileged to eavesdrop on many conversations between Serkin, Horszowski, and Marx. Marx was also the brother of Roberto Burle Marx, who is usually considered the greatest Brazilian landscape architect, so I was able to meet Roberto on his visits to the United States as well as some of his American colleagues. After working with Marx I entered the University of Pennsylvania, where I encountered a series of remarkable

18  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn musicians comparable to Marx. George Crumb was my freshman composition teacher, and I later worked intensively with George Rochberg. André C. Vauclain was my principal theory teacher; Vauclain had studied with Rosario Scalero, the legendary composition teacher at the Curtis Institute, and with Eusebius Mandyczewski, so I was exposed to the Italian partimento tradition. My undergraduate degree was not in music; although I took plenty of music courses at Penn, I decided to major in Germanic Languages and Literatures. This allowed me to interact with a remarkable group of professors, including Adolf Klarman, who became one of my closest mentors. Klarman was the editor of Franz Werfel’s complete works and was the executor of his estate and that of his widow, Alma Mahler Werfel. So, in many ways my interdisciplinary bent was of long standing. It was Rochberg who encouraged me to pursue graduate studies at Yale; he said that I would love Yale “despite Allen Forte.” This was the first time I had heard Forte’s name mentioned, so I was puzzled by this remark. As soon as I met Forte, however, I understood exactly what Rochberg had meant. Forte seemed determined to police the boundaries of the field, rigorously excluding anything that he considered outside the realm of technical music theory. In retrospect I can see that his rigidity was an understandable reaction to the relatively low status of music theory in higher education at the time. Along with Milton Babbitt and others, he was trying to establish theory as an independent discipline that would have the prestige of a university subject. This meant severing its ties to the conservatory and to practical musicianship. Babbitt’s reaction to someone who asked if Princeton gave credit for lessons in musical performance (“Does the English Department give credit for typing?”) may have been apocryphal, but it contains a poetic truth. For Babbitt and Forte in the emerging stages of their attempts to reorient the field, physics was the master discipline and the model to emulate, and they cultivated the aura of scientific research; hence Forte’s jargon, with its set classes, Z-related pairs, K complexes, nexus sets, and so on. Forte’s attempts to define the field in narrow terms became an invitation to me to transgress those rather arbitrary boundaries, to make them more porous, inspiring me to explore fields outside of music theory, and to become interdisciplinary. Editors:

Thank you for sharing those autobiographical details. Well, perhaps it is fitting for a final question to ask you about finality or completion. In addition to being a music theorist

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  19 and musicologist, you are a pianist and composer—​indeed, a contrapuntist par excellence who has recently published a much-​lauded completion of J. S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue. Can you speak a bit about that compositional task, and in particular about how the drive to definitive completion sits with your deconstructive sense of the infinite openness of texts? KK:

The only way to complete Bach’s Art of Fugue or any other unfinished composition is to create a new work of art; although the new work will remain parasitic on the old, if it is convincing, it will have the same enigmatic quality and openness to interpretation as the original. I have described my completion as a scholarly commentary on The Art of Fugue, but in the form of music rather than words (Korsyn 2016, 116). Most writing about works of art tends to be reductive, as when critics try to paraphrase the meaning of a poem or distill a novel into its themes. This seems deeply antithetical to the nature of works of art, which creates unique worlds that fiercely resist any sort of paraphrase or summary. By writing a musical commentary that is a creative response to Contrapunctus 14, I hope to foster more imaginative forms of criticism that combat this tendency toward abstraction, producing new forms of sensuous knowledge. My completion also maintains a dialogue with other possible versions and constitutes an implicit critique of previous completions, so it is by no means a self-​contained or hermetically sealed unit, but remains an open work. Alan Howard, who heard me perform my ending in 2019, recognized this dialogic quality: At the Bach Network meeting at Madingley Hall, Cambridge earlier this year … delegates were treated to a performance by Kevin Korsyn of his remarkable new completion of Contrapunctus XIV from The Art of Fugue … When Korsyn comments that his completion of Contrapunctus XIV is “a scholarly commentary on The Art of Fugue, but in the form of music rather than a verbal text” it is surely also a commentary on the various attempts to complete the work. (Howard 2019, 453–​54, quoting Korsyn 2016, 116) Even in trying to write the next note at the point where Bach’s fragment ends, one faces compositional choices that have been solved in very different ways. Consider, for example, my relationship to the ending composed by Donald Francis Tovey, which is perhaps the most learned and inspired of previous

20  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn attempts to complete the fugue. Tovey was the first to realize the possibility of using invertible counterpoint at the twelfth in the quadruple combination of themes; this device had to have been programmed into the combination of themes by Bach and was surely part of his plan for the piece from the beginning. Any completion using invertible counterpoint at the twelfth is partly an homage to Tovey. At the same time, Tovey made some regrettable decisions in his completion, one involving what I called “zombie rules,” avoiding certain thematic combinations that involve successions of unequal fifths, ignoring Bach’s own practice in the treatment of fifths; this forced Tovey to add an awkward syncopation to the motto theme, distorting what should surely be the return of the simplest form of the subject as stated in the first fugue in the collection. Another decision that marred Tovey’s completion was his desire to invert the quadruple combination of themes melodically, ignoring the fact that the second theme does not sound very convincing when so inverted, and ignoring his own misgivings about the awkward ascending resolutions of suspensions that result (Korsyn 2016); by avoiding these pitfalls, my ending is an implicit critique of Tovey’s. At the same time, of course, anyone aspiring to complete the fragment ought to share the same desire for perfection that motivated Bach to undertake multiple revisions of his works. We see this in the case of The Art of Fugue itself; Bach finished an early version of the collection in 1742, but returned to it in the late 1740s when he prepared the work for engraving, adding movements and polishing some of the existing ones. But this desire to create—​or to discover—​the perfect ending to Contrapunctus 14 remains an ideal that can never be realized. Alan Howard also sees my completion on a continuum with the project of historically informed performance in general: It was revealing to hear Korsyn remark at his Bach Network presentation that even his own completion of Contrapunctus XIV evolves considerably each time he presents it in public. This observation, I would suggest, brings the tasks of completion and reconstruction into contact with the broader aims of historically informed performance, which arguably always involves the creative interpretation of notational systems that only partially encode the music they transmit. (Howard 2019, 453)

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  21 My ending is also an implicit rebuke to the frequent practice of ending performances with a portentous silence at the moment where Bach’s autograph breaks off, based on the now discredited assumption that Bach died while writing the piece. David Schulenberg warned that “to conclude a performance exactly where the fragment ends would be a dramatic gesture but one that invites a sentimental response,” (2006, 424). Ending with reverential silence effectively embalms the fragment, turning it into a dead monument and an object of misplaced piety; “sentimentality,” as Wallace Stevens noted, “is a failure of feeling” (Stevens 1997, 903). By daring to write a conclusion, I am trying to reclaim this piece as a living process, as an act of the imagination in which we can participate, becoming cocreators. Ultimately this process of creatively entering Bach’s sound-​ world may afford us the kind of sensuous knowing that Adorno connected to mimesis, resembling the object rather than dominating it, as Lindiwe Dovey explains: Grounded in mimicry, Adorno’s mimesis allows for the possibility of a different kind of relationship between subject and object—​ an adaptive or correlating behavior in which the subject attempts to be like the object, rather than control the object by identifying it. Correlating behavior, according to Adorno, allows the subject to appreciate the object’s full, embodied ­ materiality—​ through “sensuous knowing” or “sensuous Othering”—​rather than classify the object through rationalizing thought. It allows for identification with the object/​Other (an embodied mode of being) rather than an identification of the object/​Other through the reifications of abstract thought. (2009, 18) Editors:

Over the decades during which you have taught at the University of Michigan and elsewhere, you have become a revered pedagogue. We would like to offer you a brief recollection of a former student—​Rachael Hutchings (née Lu), who was a piano major at Michigan in the early 1990s and took sophomore theory with you. In one memorable lecture, Professor Korsyn analyzed Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E major, op. 109. He spoke extemporaneously, without notes, yet with seamless logic and flow. He methodically uncovered layers of meaning, interspersing examples from the piece, which he played from

22  An Interview with Kevin Korsyn memory on the classroom upright. Korsyn lectured with measured, quiet conviction, his deep understanding and love for the music shining through. One elegant, incisive point led to another, paralleling that upward spiral he was showing us in Beethoven’s variations. Beethoven’s beautiful inner world as revealed by Professor Korsyn shimmered all around me. KK:

I am deeply grateful for Rachael’s touching memories of our classes together, and I continue to be inspired by the students I have been privileged to teach.

Bibliography Abrams, M. H. 1971. Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature. New York: Norton. Baxandall, Michael. 1985. Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures. New Haven: Yale University Press. Christopher Norris. 1988. Paul de Man: Deconstruction and the Critique of Aesthetic Ideology. New York: Routledge. Derrida, Jacques. 1982. Margins of Philosophy. Translated by Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —​—​—​. 1987. Limited, Inc. Translated by Alan Bass, Jeffrey Mehlman, and Samuel Weber. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Dovey, Lindiwe. 2009. African Film and Literature: Adapting Violence to the Screen. New York: Columbia University Press. Gienow-​Hecht, Jessica C. E., ed. 2007. Decentering America. New York: Berghahn Books. Howard, Alan. 2019. “Editorial.” Early Music 47, no. 4: 453–​54. Jameson, Frederic. 1971. Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theories of Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Korsyn, Kevin. 1991. “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence.” Music Analysis 10, nos. 1/​2: 3–​72. —​—​—​. 1993. “Brahms Research and Aesthetic Ideology.” Music Analysis 12, no. 1: 89–​103. —​—​—​1996. “Directional Tonality and Intertextuality.” In The Second Practice of Nineteenth-​Century Music. Edited by William Kinderman and Harald Krebs, 45–​83. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. —​ —​ —​ . 1999. “Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence, and Dialogue.” Rethinking Music. Edited by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist, 55–​72. New York: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2003. Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research. New York: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2009. “Musical Reception History and the Trauma of Real History: Decoding the Pantomime in Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony.” Musicological Annual/​Muzikoloski Zbornik 45, no. 2: 143–​58. —​—​—​. 2011. “The Aging of the New Musicology.” In Approaches to Music Research. Edited by Nico Schüler and Leon Stefanija, 9–​24. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

An Interview with Kevin Korsyn  23 —​—​–​–​–​. 2016. “At the Margins of Music Theory, History, and Composition: Completing the Unfinished Fugue from Die Kunst der Fuge by J.S. Bach” (Keynote Essay). Music Theory and Analysis 3, no. 11: 115–​43. Laclau, Ernesto and Chantal Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Routledge. Leppert, R.D. (ed.). 2002. Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno. Trans. S. H. Gillespie et al. Berkeley: University of California Press. Schulenberg, David. 2006. The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach. 2nd edition. New York: Routledge. Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. 1998. Let Jasmine Rain Down: Song and Remembrance among Syrian Jews. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Spaeth, Sigmund. 1926. Words and Music. New York: Simon and Schuster. Stevens, Wallace. 1997. Collected Poetry and Prose. Edited by Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson. New York: Library of America. Susan McClary. 1991 Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tappert, Wilhelm. 1868. Wandernde Melodien: eine musikalische Studie. 2nd edition, 1889. Berlin: Brachvogel & Ranft.

Part I

Close Reading and the Problematics of Analysis

1 Extraordinary Measures Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe” Harald Krebs

The same world … but seen from another angle, and counted in entirely new measures. (Lusseyran 2014, 129)

1.1 Introduction1 In the opening pages of his extraordinary volume Decentering Music, Kevin Korsyn deplores the lack of communication among the three large professional societies of musical academia (the American Musicological Society, the Society for Music Theory, and the Society for Ethnomusicology; Korsyn 2003). I believe Korsyn would agree that there has been considerable improvement in this respect since the publication of his book. The three societies have at times joined forces to explore particular topics. One area in which there is lively interaction among them is musical research inspired by the field of disability studies (DS). Since 2013, the three societies have collaborated on a blog on this subject, and their study groups on disability issues have co-​organized panels at joint conferences. Collaboration among scholars from the fields represented by the three societies is evident in prominent publications on music and disability. For example, a musicologist and a music theorist jointly edited the first book of essays on this research area (Lerner and Straus 2006), and three musicologists (one of whom has published in music theory journals) and a music theorist (who published his first DS-​related article in JAMS) coedited the Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies (Howe et al. 2015). With contributions by musicians of various stripes, scholarship on music and disability has burgeoned during the past two decades. It has addressed a wide variety of issues and musics (the aforementioned Oxford Handbook provides an excellent cross section of the specific areas that have been investigated). The music of Franz Schubert—​in particular, his late music, which was profoundly impacted by his final illness—​has occupied a prominent position in this scholarship. In an early essay on music and disability, Joseph Straus introduced

DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-4

28  Harald Krebs Schubert’s late music in connection with his discussion of a famous essay by Edward Cone (1982), which linked a pervasive E/​Fb in the Moment musical in A-​flat (D. 780, 1828) to Schubert’s illness and its “disabling psychological and physical effects” (Straus 2006, 151). In his own essay, Straus drew attention to a similar use of a chromatic pitch in Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-​flat (D. 960, 1828) and traced through the work the acceptance and accommodation of this “tonal problem” (Straus 2006, 166–​75). In a monograph on music and disability published a few years later, Straus again discussed the Piano Sonata in B-​flat, and added another late work, the Piano Trio in B-​flat (D. 898, 1827), to his investigation of musical narratives based on the accommodation of structurally disruptive chromatic pitches (Straus 2011, 64–​67). Additional studies of Schubert’s late music from a DS perspective followed Straus’s pioneering work. In 2008, Brian Hyer presented a paper on the song “Die Stadt” from the posthumous cycle Schwanengesang (D. 957, 1828), in which he connected the disorientation that pervades both Heine’s poem and Schubert’s music to autism (Hyer 2008). In an article from 2009, Blake Howe investigated Schubert’s song “Auflösung” (D. 807, 1824) and other, contemporaneous Mayrhofer settings, counterpointing his analyses with a broader discussion of Auflösung (dissolution) in various domains of Schubert’s life, including the dissolution of his own and the poet’s bodies during their final illnesses (Howe 2009). More recently, Benjamin Binder interpreted Schubert’s “Der Doppelgänger” (also from Schwanengesang, D. 957) as a self-​portrait and self-​critique of the dying composer, eloquently connecting images of the breakdown and failure of a diseased body to the unusually sparse texture and the “encumbered” style of the song (Binder 2019). To my knowledge, there exist no DS-​inspired analyses of one of Schubert’s late songs that explicitly deals with disability, namely “Der blinde Knabe,” D. 833. This is surprising, not only because Schubert’s music is generally prevalent in studies of music and disability, but also because the topic of blindness features quite prominently in this research.2 “Der blinde Knabe,” composed in 1825, during the first phase of what we might call Schubert’s late period, is the only song by Schubert in which blindness, or indeed any disability, is a central concern. References to blindness are infrequent in Schubert’s song texts, and most of those that occur are metaphorical—​for instance, allusions to being blinded by tears (as in “Der Tod Oscars,” D. 375: “Meine Augen sind von Thränen erblindet” [my eyes are blinded by tears]); to the world’s being blind to goodness (as in “Litanei,” D. 343: “Die blinde Welt” [the blind world]); or to the blind god of love (as in “Die Macht der Liebe,” D. 308: “Blinder Knabe! ... blinder Gott” [blind boy! ... blind god]). The poem of “Der blinde Knabe,” however, refers not to the blind boy Cupid, but to a blind human boy. In this chapter, I investigate the poem and Schubert’s setting from the perspective of the DS-​inspired work cited earlier, particularly that of Joseph Straus. Unlike earlier DS analyses of Schubert’s music, mine focuses on rhythm and meter rather than pitch.

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  29 1.2  Colley Cibber’s Blind Boy The original version of the poem that underlies Schubert’s song is in English, by Colley Cibber (1671–​1757). Cibber’s poem is reproduced below: O say! what is that thing call’d light, Which I must ne’er enjoy? What are the blessings of the sight? O tell your poor blind boy! 5

You talk of wond’rous things you see, You say the sun shines bright; I feel him warm, but how can he Or make it day or night.

My day or night myself I make, 10 Whene’er I sleep or play; And could I ever keep awake, With me ’twere always day. With heavy sighs I often hear You mourn my hapless woe; 15 But sure with patience I can bear A loss I ne’er can know. Then let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy; Whilst thus I sing, I am a king, 20 Although a poor blind boy. Colley Cibber was better known in his time as a playwright, actor, and theater manager than as a poet (although, to the surprise of many compatriots, he was named poet laureate of England in 1730). His plays elicited scornful responses from his contemporaries—​especially from Alexander Pope, who elevated him to the dubious honor of King of Dunces in the 1743 version of The Dunciad (McGirr 2016, 3). Cibber’s poetry seems to have been universally derided, and he himself did not think highly of it. The many negative assessments by his prominent contemporaries have colored perceptions of Cibber’s works in our time. In a recent monograph, however, Elaine McGirr counters the predominantly negative view of Cibber with the statement that “[he] was, arguably, the most important and most influential cultural figure of the eighteenth century.” She supports this claim with an impressive list of achievements: “he transformed the comedy of manners; he managed the first commercially successful national theatre; he helped shape the cult of Shakespeare; he dramatised and celebrated female passions and desires” (McGirr 2016, 9). Even McGirr, however, has nothing positive to say about Cibber’s poetry. In her own rare mentions of it, she uses adjectives such

30  Harald Krebs as “pedestrian” and “clunky” (McGirr 2016, 6). Though she disputes negative assessments of other aspects of his work, she raises no objections to other writers’ critical remarks about Cibber as a poet, such as Peter Briggs’s description of Cibber as “a second-​rate poet who nevertheless became poet-​laureate” (McGirr 2016, 29; Briggs 2004, 5). When we read Cibber’s poem about a blind boy, then, we may not be reading his best work. Furthermore, we are reading a work whose subject lies outside his usual interests as an author. In his plays, for example, Cibber focused on the upper classes. Thomas Davies, writing not long after Cibber’s death, acknowledged this specialization: “[He] was the first who introduced men and women of high quality on the stage, and gave them language and manners suitable to their rank and birth” (1784, 442). A poem about a blind boy is, therefore, a departure from Cibber’s usual preoccupations. When he wrote plays about the upper classes, he was dealing with a subject with which he was intimately familiar—​but his poem about a blind boy addresses a topic about which he presumably knew little. It is not surprising, then, that the poem includes some inaccuracies about blindness. Cibber assumes, for instance, that a blind person can have no understanding of the difference between light and dark. Yet, as the writings of blind authors inform us, visual impairment is not necessarily such a “black-​ and-​white” matter. Stephen Kuusisto begins his autobiographical account as follows: Blindness is often perceived by the sighted as an either/​or condition: one sees or does not see. But often a blind person experiences a series of veils: I stare at the world through smeared and broken windowpanes. Ahead of me the shapes and colors suggest the sails of Tristan’s ship or an elephant’s ear floating in air, though in reality it is a middle-​aged man in a London Fog raincoat that billows behind him in the April wind … People shimmer like beehives. (Kuusisto 1998, 5)3 Cibber likely had no knowledge of the gradations of blindness to which Kuusisto alludes; he places his blind boy firmly at the “does not see” end of the spectrum. Another aspect of blindness about which Cibber seems unaware is that light may be a matter of indifference to the blind, and may even be injurious to them. Thérèse-​Adèle Husson wrote in 1825, I was deprived of my sight at the age of nine months. I have just reached my twenty-​second year, and I still don’t remember ever having formed a single regret concerning the loss of my eyes, a loss that seems to me to be of little importance. (Kudlick and Weygand 2001, 5) And Stephen Kuusisto mentions that “many who have minimal sight are photophobic, like [him]self, and daylight is painful” (1998, 7). Cibber, on the

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  31 other hand, imagines (as a sighted person would naturally tend to do) that the blind boy urgently desires to know about that which he “must ne’er enjoy,” and that he is powerfully drawn toward light, rather than fearing it. Cibber’s attitude toward his blind boy is determined in part by pity—​the typical response of the sighted toward the blind. The adjective “poor” in the last line of the first stanza already strikes a pitying note, and Cibber intensifies this note by repeating the locution “poor blind boy” at the end of the poem. Whether we equate the word “poor” with “pitiable” or with “indigent,” it suggests that the boy deserves the pity of others, including Cibber and us as readers.4 Cibber’s poem, however, contains hints of a deeper understanding of the blind, particularly in a psychological sense. One such hint relates to the boy’s reaction to the pity that is offered to him. In the fourth stanza, Cibber has him reject the pity that he hears sighted persons express by “heavy sighs”; he states that the absence of something that he does not understand (i.e., light) is not a heavy burden for him. The idea that pity is inappropriate in relation to the blind, and even bothersome to them, is also found in the writings of Thérèse-​Adèle Husson, who felt that the blind should be pitied not because of their impairment but rather because of the relentless compassion of sighted persons: When [the blind] appear in public the stares of the multitude are fixed upon them, and agonizing words strike their ears: “What a shame!” “How unfortunate!” “Death would be preferable to such a cruel privation!” There are even some people who seek out the blind to tell them these things so they don’t miss any of the sad exclamations … Those blind from birth do not know what light is, and would not even miss it without the indiscreet phrases too often uttered in their presence. We have good reason to be pitied, people stricken with blindness tell themselves, because in virtually every situation our lot gives rise to such painful compassion. (Kudlick and Weygand 2001, 25) Cibber’s understanding that it may be inappropriate to pity the blind goes beyond his blind boy’s relatively gentle rejection of this reaction. The undeniable strand of compassion in his poem is counterpointed by suggestions of a different, in fact an opposing, view of the boy and his condition: suggestions that his life encompasses joys that overshadow his impairment, and that he is to be admired and envied rather than pitied. In the third stanza, for example, Cibber’s blind boy asserts his capacity to organize his time as he wishes, independently of nature; he refers to a power and a freedom that he possesses and that the sighted do not. In the final stanza, the blind boy exhorts himself not to allow his impairment to destroy his good cheer, and claims that he is “a king,” thereby again implying that his state is enviable rather than pitiable. The blind boy’s allusion to sources of joy (“good cheer”) in his life, and to gifts and powers that the sighted do not possess, resonates with writings by

32  Harald Krebs blind authors. Cibber’s references to the boy’s patience and happiness might seem to cast a mawkish patina over the poem (Richard Capell assesses the poem in this manner when he accuses Cibber of complacency, sentimentality, and impertinence in “put[ting] smooth words into the mouth of the blind”; Capell 1957, 207). But numerous blind authors and writers about the blind confirm that “good cheer” and patience are characteristic of blind individuals. Thérèse-​Adèle Husson states that “elation is a feeling that animates beings deprived of sight” (Kudlick and Weygand 2001, 28). Johann Wilhelm Klein, a prominent early nineteenth-​century advocate for and educator of the blind who had much opportunity to observe them, mentions their “cheerful, lighthearted attitude and contented spirit” (einen heitern, leichten Sinn und ein zufriedenes Gemüth; Klein 1819, 14). More recently, the blind author Jacques Lusseyran writes, “Blindness gives us great happiness. It gives us a great opportunity, both through its disorder and through the order it creates” (2016, 55–​56). The words that Cibber puts into his blind boy’s mouth, then, are not as “smooth” and “sentimental” as they may seem; they correspond to the avowed experiences and sensations of blind individuals. Cibber’s suggestions that unique pleasures and powers are available to the blind boy, too, are confirmed by writings of the blind. In an early nineteenth-​ century volume of poems “for and by the blind,” compiled by Klein (1827), the blind poet Louise Egloff writes: Ich fühle wenig Leiden! Beweint mein Schicksal nicht; Denn auch mir lächeln Freuden Mit holdem Angesicht.

I feel little sorrow! Do not weep at my fate; For joys smile for me, too, With [their] lovely visage.

More recent blind authors mention the unique capabilities of the blind. Georgina Kleege writes in her “eyewitness account” that the blind “do not feel themselves to be deficient or partial—​sighted people minus sight—​but whole human beings who have learned to attend to their nonvisual senses in different ways” (2013, 453). Jacques Lusseyran writes that “blindness is a state of perception which—​when taken in all seriousness, accepted, and used—​is capable of increasing many faculties sorely needed in every intellectual and organizational activity” (2016, 31). All of these writings resonate with the words of Cibber’s blind boy, who has a “nonvisual sense” of time and manages his life without being subjected to the controlling influence of sunlight, and who does not regard himself as “deficient or partial.” Cibber’s inclusion in his poem of an unpitying, valorizing thread lifts his portrait of the blind boy out of the sentimental domain, and moves it into the proximity of certain present-​day views of disability. We can place this observation into focus by considering Cibber’s blind boy from the standpoint of the typologies of disability that Joseph Straus outlines in his writings. In Extraordinary Measures, he presents four models of disability that have conditioned Western thinking about disability for the past three centuries (Straus 2011, 5):

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  33 1) disability as an affliction, permanent and indelible; 2) disability as afflatus (defined as divine inspiration), a mark of transcendent vision; 3) disability as a medical defect, a bodily pathology to be overcome through individual effort; and 4) disability as a personal, cultural, and social identity, to be affirmatively claimed. Straus points out that these models, though they have to some extent unfolded chronologically, have coexisted and interacted in multiple ways. Their interaction is evident in Cibber’s poem. The first model is suggested by Cibber’s references to the permanence of the boy’s impairment (ll. 2 and 16), but Straus explains that the permanent affliction of blindness is, in this model, associated with divine disfavor—​an idea that does not surface in the poem. Nor does Cibber explicitly represent the boy as enjoying divine favor, as suggested by the second model; he hints that the boy possesses extraordinary gifts, but does not ascribe them to a divine source.5 The third model, that of blindness as a pathological condition, is prominent in the poem; Cibber stresses that the blind boy, unlike the healthy individuals who observe and pity him, is unable to perceive light. There are hints at the idea of “overcoming” blindness in the mention of the boy’s success at organizing his time in spite of it, and in the assertion that he is a “king” (which suggests his rising above, rather than being conquered by, his blindness). The fourth model (which Straus ascribes primarily to our time) is only faintly suggested in Cibber’s poem. Straus explains that this model has recently emerged as an alternative to a predominantly medical way of conceiving of disability, disability now being “understood as an aspect of the diversity of human morphology, capability, and behavior: a difference, not a deficit” (2011, 9). This description applies in part to Cibber’s blind boy, who focuses on the positive rather than the negative aspects of his condition, and therefore seems to conceive of it as difference rather than as deficit. In a more recent monograph, Straus presents additional sets of categories that we can usefully apply to Cibber’s poem (2018, 11). He mentions three ways of representing disabled bodies in literature: (1) “a demonic figure whose disability is a mark of evil”; (2) “a presexual or asexual innocent whose disability, often blindness or intellectual impairment, is a mark of spiritual purity”; and (3) “a saintly visionary whose disability is a mark of transcendent wisdom.” Cibber’s blind boy appears to fall into the second category; since he is a child, he could be described as “a pre-​sexual … innocent,” although innocence and spiritual purity are not specifically mentioned in the poem. Straus also lists five “modes of apprehension” of disability (2018, 12–​13). The mode that best applies to Cibber’s blind boy (I shall not summarize all of them here) is the “sentimental,” about which Straus writes that it “instructs the spectator to look down [upon the disabled] with benevolence. This mode suggests pity and evokes an impulse toward care and cure. It is particularly associated with Sweet Innocents and Charity Cripples.”6 Cibber himself certainly “looks down” with benevolence and pity upon his protagonist. The sighted observers mentioned in the poem do the same, and we as readers are expected to follow suit. But there

34  Harald Krebs are hints in the poem at another mode: the “wondrous mode,” which “directs the viewer to look up in awe of difference.” Surely Cibber intended us as readers not merely to pity the blind boy, but also to admire him—​perhaps even to revere him—​for his moral strength and his patient endurance of his impairment. 1.3  Craigher’s Blind Boy The translator whose German version of Cibber’s poem Schubert set to music was the Austrian poet Jacob Nikolaus Craigher de Jachelutta, usually called “Craigher” (1797–​1855). He grew up in poverty, as he stated in the following autobiographical poetic lines (Craigher 1828, 8; my translation): Bildungslos, ein armer, scheuer Knabe, Vom Geschick ins Leben fortgetrieben, Mußt ich ringen, hoffen, beten, lieben, Fest gestützt auf schwachem Wanderstabe.

Uneducated, a poor, shy boy, Driven out into life by destiny, I had to struggle, hope, pray, love, Firmly leaning on a weak walking stick.

Unlike Cibber, Craigher had personal experience of poverty, though not of blindness. It may have been his own memory of being an “armer … Knabe” that drew him to translate Cibber’s poem about a poor blind boy. For many years, Craigher made his living as a merchant, a calling that allowed him to travel widely and to learn numerous languages. After settling in Vienna in 1820, he made the acquaintance of several prominent poets, including Friedrich Schlegel, and his own poems began to appear in journals. In 1828 he published, under the name “Nikolaus,” a collection titled Poetische Betrachtungen in freyen Stunden (Poetic Ruminations during Hours of Leisure), upon which Schlegel placed his stamp of approval by contributing a preface. Schubert and Craigher met in 1825. The poet gave Schubert three of his poems, all of which the composer set to music that same year—​“Die junge Nonne” (“The Young Nun,” D. 828), “Totengräbers Heimweh” (“Gravedigger’s Homesickness,” D. 842), and the translation of “The Blind Boy.” The poet and the composer planned further collaborations: Craigher was to provide Schubert with German translations of poems from several languages, translations that were couched in the original meters so that Schubert would be able to publish his settings with texts both in German and the original language, thereby creating a market for his songs outside of Austria and Germany (Johnson 2014, I/​ 391 and III/​851). “Der blinde Knabe” may be Craigher’s initial sample of such a translation; the original English poem and the translation match metrically and thus would both have fitted to Schubert’s melody (although, as Graham Johnson points out, the English fits less convincingly as to the emphasizing of significant words; Johnson 2014, I/​311). The song, however, was never published with both Cibber’s and Craigher’s texts. In Example 1.1, I have placed Cibber’s poem and my English translation of Craigher’s German version side by side. This juxtaposition demonstrates at a

newgenrtpdf

My Translation of Craigher’s Poem

Craigher’s Poem in German

O say! what is that thing call’d light, Which I must ne’er enjoy? What are the blessings of the sight? O tell your poor blind boy!

O tell me once, dear ones, What is that thing called light? What are all those joys of sight, Which I have never known?

O sagt, ihr Lieben, mir einmal, Welch Ding ist’s, Licht genannt? Was sind des Sehens Freuden all, Die niemals ich gekannt?

The sun that you see shining so brightly, For poor me, it never shines; You say that it rises and sets, [But] I don’t know when or how.

Die Sonne, die so hell ihr seht, Mir Armen scheint sie nie, Ihr sagt, sie auf und nieder geht, Ich weiss nicht wann, noch wie.

My day or night myself I make, 10 Whene’er I sleep or play; And could I ever keep awake, With me ’twere always day.

My day and night myself I make, While I sleep and play; My inner life smiles at me radiantly, I have many joys.

Ich mach’ mir selbst so Tag wie Nacht, Dieweil ich schlaf’ und spiel’; Mein inn’res Leben schön mir lacht, Ich hab’ der Freuden viel.

With heavy sighs I often hear You mourn my hapless woe; 15 But sure with patience I can bear A loss I ne’er can know.

I don’t know the things that give you joy, But no guilt weighs me down; So I am happy in my sorrow And bear it with patience.

Zwar kenn’ ich nicht, was euch erfreut, Doch drückt mich keine Schuld, Drum freu’ ich mich in meinem Leid Und trag’ es mit Geduld.

Then let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy; Whilst thus I sing, I am a king, 20 Although a poor blind boy

I am so happy, am so rich With what God has given me; I am as happy as a king, although [I am] a poor blind boy.

Ich bin so glücklich, bin so reich Mit dem, was Gott mir gab, Bin wie ein König froh, obgleich Ein armer blinder Knab’.

5 You talk of wond’rous things you see, You say the sun shines bright; I feel him warm, but how can he Or make it day or night.

Example 1.1 Comparison of Colley Cibber’s and Craigher’s “The Blind Boy”

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  35

Colley Cibber’s Poem

36  Harald Krebs glance that Craigher’s text is more than a mere translation, and that it deviates from the original in significant ways. The content of the first stanza of Craigher’s translation quite closely matches that of Cibber’s first stanza. Both versions begin with the boy’s questions about the nature of light and of the pleasures that it brings, and in both, he asserts the impossibility of his enjoying these pleasures (in Cibber’s poem this assertion refers to the future, and in Craigher’s translation to the past). The only notable difference between the first stanzas is that Craigher avoids the “poor blind boy” motif at this point. To be sure, Craigher does add the adjective “poor” in the second stanza, where Cibber does not use it. Otherwise, he preserves the gist of Cibber’s second stanza (the reference to sunlight and to the boy’s incomprehension of its time-​determining powers). The first couplet of the third stanza is almost identical in the two versions—​but in the second couplet (ll. 11–​12), Craigher’s text diverges from Cibber’s. The latter’s second couplet continues the thought of the first by restating, in different language, the boy’s independence from nature as he structures his days. Craigher’s second couplet, on the other hand, shifts abruptly from the physical to the spiritual and moral plane; his blind boy, having affirmed his power to organize day and night as he wishes, goes on to claim that he has a rich inner life and many joys, and implies that these outweigh the joys of sight, which he shall never know. Here, Craigher begins to amplify Cibber’s hints at the wondrous mode, and to downplay the sentimental: Craigher’s blind boy emerges much more distinctly as a uniquely gifted individual at whom we should look up in admiration, not down with pity. Craigher continues to downplay pity in his penultimate stanza, which begins not by referring to the sympathetic sighs of spectators, but by elaborating on the aforementioned riches of the boy’s inner life: although he cannot fathom the joys of the sighted, the boy is blessed with a clear conscience—​no guilt weighs upon him. It is for this reason that he can be happy and that he can bear his sightlessness with patience. Cibber, by contrast, merely hints (in the final stanza) at the blind boy’s moral riches by having him refer to himself as a king. Although the final stanzas of the two versions are quite similar, Craigher’s final lines again emphasize, to a greater degree than Cibber’s, the admirable moral qualities of the blind boy. In the translation, the boy, rather than merely mentioning his “cheer of mind” and his status as a king, states that he is “so happy” and “so rich” (l. 17), and reiterates that he is “as happy as a king” (l. 19). Furthermore, in the translation, the boy refers to his happiness and his moral riches as gifts from God (l. 18); Cibber does not strike this religious note. In physical terms, Craigher’s blind boy is no different from Cibber’s; both have absolutely no sight. Craigher’s protagonist not only sees no fluctuations in light as the sun rises and sets, but (far-​fetched though this is) seems ignorant even of the warming effects of the sun. There is no equivalent in the translation for Cibber’s line “I feel him warm” (l. 7), and the complete absence of knowledge of the rising and the setting of the sun articulated in ll. 7–​8 of the translation suggests that this blind boy does not “feel him warm.”

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  37 Spiritually, Craigher’s blind boy is a different individual from Cibber’s. The application of Straus’s typologies highlights the differences. If we consider the four models of disability presented in Straus (2011), we find that the third model—​the conception of blindness as a medical defect—​remains conspicuous in the translation, along with indications that the blind boy has “overcome [his blindness] through individual effort” (5). The second and fourth models, however, merely suggested in Cibber’s poem, play a much more prominent role in the translation. Craigher’s blind boy is blessed with divine gifts and riches that transcend his physical impairment. He has an inner life that smiles at him more radiantly than the sun that he cannot see. His freedom from guilt outweighs the many joys of the sighted that are unavailable to and unfathomable for him. All of these features suggest Straus’s second model: blindness “as afflatus (defined as divine inspiration), a mark of transcendent vision.” The fourth model (“disability as a personal, cultural, and social identity, to be affirmatively claimed”) also underlies Craigher’s translation. What could be more affirmative than the latter’s final six lines, in which the boy “claims,” in fact celebrates, his identity with reiterations of “I am …” followed by positive statements? From Straus’s list of ways of representing disabled bodies in literature (2018, 11), the second category (“an innocent whose … blindness … is a mark of spiritual purity”) is more clearly apropos of Craigher’s blind boy than of Cibber’s; Craigher, unlike Cibber, overtly alludes to the boy’s purity (“no guilt weighs me down”—​l. 14). If we consider Straus’s five modes of apprehension of disability (Straus 2018, 12–​13), we find that the “sentimental mode” is still somewhat relevant, since the boy certainly remains in the “Sweet Innocent” category. The “wondrous mode,” however, almost eclipses the sentimental in Craigher’s poem. Straus points out that this mode is linked with “the religious model of disability, where disability may be seen as a mark of divine inspiration.” Although Craigher does not represent the blind boy as being divinely inspired, he certainly portrays him as being divinely influenced—​as being the recipient of divine gifts, and as being spiritually pure. It is this blind boy—​hardly pitiable, but instead admirable and enviable—​whom Schubert encountered in Craigher’s free translation of Cibber’s poem. 1.4  Schubert’s Blind Boy There is evidence that Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe” garnered favorable attention during the composer’s lifetime.7 Johann Nepomuk Hummel and his student Ferdinand Hiller, for example, were deeply moved when they heard Johann Michael Vogl and Schubert perform the song early in 1827, and their performance inspired Hummel to improvise at the piano on what he had heard (Johnson 2014, I/​310 and II/​494; Dürr 1985, xxvi). In our time, the song has received little attention. When authors mention it at all, they sometimes do so in a critical or belittling vein. For example, Richard Capell’s descriptions of “Der blinde Knabe” as “a comfortable song about unimaginable disaster” and as “a graceful and placid brook song” (if one leaves the text aside) do not do

38  Harald Krebs it justice (1957, 207). Graham Johnson is one recent writer who has given the song its due (2014, I/​310–​12); although he is unable to plumb all of the song’s subtleties in the small space that his encyclopedic format allows, he writes perceptively about aspects of the piano part and the vocal line. My remarks below address rhythmic and metric characteristics of the song and link them to the foregoing DS-​related discussion of the poem. Franz Schubert had more personal knowledge of the blind than did either Cibber or Craigher. He grew up in an environment in which poor, disabled, and orphaned children were valued and cared for. His father, Franz Theodor Schubert (1763–​1830), had a Vienna-​wide reputation for his educational and charitable work with the impoverished children in his parish. As a schoolteacher, Franz Theodor followed the philosophy of Johann Wilhelm Klein, the aforementioned benefactor of the blind in Vienna, by integrating blind students into his classes.8 Franz Schubert, then, would have met numerous blind boys during his childhood and during later stays in his parents’ home in 1813–​18. Blindness had, furthermore, been on his mind since being diagnosed with syphilis in 1823; during the years 1823–​25, he feared that he would go blind as a result of the disease.9 Craigher’s poem is therefore likely to have struck a chord with him when he received it from the poet in 1825. The song hints at a greater degree of familiarity with blindness than do the two poems. Schubert’s music suggests an awareness that blindness is more complex than mere lack of sight, and some knowledge of the life of the blind. Had he wished to represent blindness as a “dark abyss” (Kuusisto 1998, 180), he might have used sustained, solid chords in a low register in the piano part. Instead, the song is dominated by an arpeggiating figure in a comparatively high register (Example 1.2a). This figure resonates with the perceptions of a “series of veils” or a “shimmer[ing] like beehives” that blind individuals with partial vision have described (Kuusisto 1998, 5); Schubert’s opening figure evokes rapid, elusive motions such as those that these mysterious words attempt to capture.10

Example 1.2a Schubert’s Introduction

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  39 Another ingredient of the piano part, the low-​pitched repeated-​note gesture beginning on the third beat of m. 1 (see Example 1.2a), alludes to a significant aspect of the lives of blind individuals that is not mentioned in the poems—​ to one of their possible modes of navigating their environment. Cibber’s and Craigher’s blind boys do not seem to move at all, but Schubert’s clearly does, for he has a stick with which he taps on his path as he walks.11 Schubert likely witnessed his father’s blind pupils using such an aid for locomotion and assigned it a prominent role in his song. Let us investigate the two gestures of the introduction more closely. What is it that makes the initial sixteenth-​note figure “shimmer”? Notice that the highest and lowest sixteenths in both hands—​the registrally accented notes—​ are displaced forward from the beats by one sixteenth-​note pulse. This displacement veils the notated beats, and thereby the metrical framework of the song; the meter “shimmers” because there are two possible ways to hear the beats (see the 1’s in Example 1.2a). Graham Johnson mentions this effect of “deliberate disorientation” and goes on to state that the entry of the repeated-​note figure in the bass on the third beat “rectifies the rhythmical trompe l’oreille of the first two beats as it pulls their wayward ramblings into line” (2014, I/​310). It is true that the first low Bb affirms a notated beat; my annotations in Example 1.2a suggest this by freeing the “1” under that beat from parentheses. The entry of the repeated-​ note figure, however, does not immediately dispel the metrical disorientation. If we have been hearing the registrally accented sixteenth notes as metrical beats, then the first low Bb will sound as if it is displaced; it is not possible for us so quickly to reorient ourselves to a new alternative of beat placement. The metrical device that is active here is one that I have termed “indirect metrical dissonance”—​ a juxtaposition of incongruent metrical layers, during which the first layer briefly continues in our minds before ceding to the second one (Krebs 1999, 45).12 Indirect dissonance continues in the second bar as the same collision between nonaligned layers occurs at the third beat. These confrontations between two placements of four-​sixteenth groups contribute to the veiling of the notated meter and to its elusive shimmering. My recomposition in Example 1.2b removes the veil of sixteenth-​note displacement by aligning the registral accents with the notated beats; comparison of Examples 1.2a and 1.2b highlights the “shimmering” quality of Schubert’s introduction. The low Bbs in mm. 1 and 2 lend additional metrical ambiguity to the introduction: since in tonal music a low bass note is a common marker of an initial downbeat, the first Bb could give the impression of being the downbeat (the preceding sixteenth notes acting as an anacrusis). Schubert thus presents the listener with two ways of hearing not only the quarter-​note beats, but also the bars (as shown in Example 1.2a by the two layers of 4’s, displaced by half a bar). The hypothetical introduction shown in Example 1.2c removes both the veils of one-​sixteenth-​note-​and half-​bar displacement, thereby rendering the passage metrically consonant. Again, comparison of Example 1.2c with

40  Harald Krebs

Example 1.2b Hypothetical Introduction with Sixteenth-​Note Displacement Removed

Example 1.2c Hypothetical Introduction with All Displacement Removed

Schubert’s actual introduction (Example 1.2a) dramatizes the latter’s metrical complexity. The entry of the vocal line, in which the stressed syllables of the poem are placed on metrical beats, and the first stressed syllable is associated with a downbeat, brings metrical clarity, in the sense that we now have no difficulty in hearing the notated meter. This clarity, however, is short-​lived: in m. 4, Schubert disrupts the regular association between stressed syllables and metrical beats. The vocal rhythm ceases in m. 4 to conform to the poem’s basic rhythm of declamation (BRD)—​the regular rhythm in which it would normally be recited.13 As if to lend weight to the blind boy’s question about the nature of light, Schubert inserts a substantial pause between the first two lines of the poem—​a pause that would not occur in a normal recitation—​and elongates the word “Ding.” The second line of the poem thus occupies two bars instead of one, and the first couplet, three bars instead of two. Measure 6 restores conformance with the BRD. Schubert’s twofold statement of the final line of the stanza injects additional asymmetry into the text-​setting: the second couplet occupies three bars instead of just two.14

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  41

Example 1.3a Hypothetical Setting of the First Stanza

Example 1.3b Schubert’s Setting of the First Stanza

Example 1.3a shows a hypothetical setting of the first stanza in which the declamation perfectly matches the poetic rhythm. Comparison of this simplest possible setting of the first stanza with Schubert’s actual setting (Example 1.3b) underlines the irregularity of the latter. The asterisks in the examples indicate stressed syllables; the degree of regularity in the spacing of asterisks illustrates the degree of regularity in the declamation.15 The numbers below the text, showing the durations between stressed syllables, measured in quarter notes, provide a more precise indication of the regularity of declamatory rhythm. In Example 1.3a, this regularity is reflected in consistent durations, broken only by the pauses that mark the ends of couplets. In Example 1.3b, the fluctuations in the numbers, especially in the first couplet (mm. 3–​5), show the irregularity of Schubert’s declamatory rhythm. The hypothetical vocal line in Example 1.3a—​an orthodox four-​bar hypermeasure, divided into two two-​bar segments and flowing without pause—​is far removed from Schubert’s six-​bar hypermeasure, which is divided into two three-​bar segments, and is rendered rhythmically unpredictable by pauses, elongations, and repetitions. One more metrical irregularity within the opening measures must be mentioned: the harmony changes from the initial tonic to the dominant in the middle of m. 4 instead of at its beginning. This delay in the arrival of the new

42  Harald Krebs harmony is linked to the aforementioned pause in the vocal line in m. 4; had this pause not occurred, the harmony would have changed on the downbeat of the second measure of the vocal line (see Example 1.3a). Harmonic change is a strong indicator of metrical structure, and incongruence between the notated meter and harmonic change results in powerful metrical conflict. In mm. 3–​ 8, harmonic changes determine a 6-​quarter-​note layer that conflicts with the notated 4-​quarter-​note layer. Measures 9–​17, setting the second stanza, are somewhat less complex in terms of rhythm and meter. The displacement within the right-​hand sixteenth notes continues, as it does throughout the song, but the larger displacement caused by the left-​hand repeated notes disappears during the vocal portion of this section. (The framing piano interludes maintain the repeated-​note gesture, and thereby, the half-​bar displacement.) The declamation in the setting of the second stanza closely follows the BRD, with pauses appearing only at the expected points—​the ends of the couplets. As a result, the hypermeter, too, is more normative than in the setting of the first stanza; the first couplet (mm. 11–​12) spans two bars rather than three (cf. mm. 3–​5). In the second couplet, however, the reiteration of the final line results, as before, in a three-​bar segment (mm. 13–​15), so that the stanza as a whole occupies five bars rather than the expected four. The 6-​layer, created in the setting of the first stanza by harmonic changes, is absent in mm. 9–​17; harmonies frequently last one bar instead of spilling over into a second one (see mm. 12, 13, and 14). The scaling back of rhythmic and metric conflict in the second stanza may be motivated by the desire to allow the powerful rhythmic and metric disruptions within the setting of the third stanza to attract all the more attention (see Example 1.4).16 There are several indications in the music that the degree of irregularity that was at work in the setting of the first stanza has been restored and even exceeded in the setting of the third. Unexpected pauses occur after both odd-​numbered lines (see mm. 19 and 21); in the first stanza, such a pause occurred only after the first line (m. 4). The melody of mm. 18–​19 returns in the middle of m. 20, displaced by a half note from its original position. Most strikingly, the repeated-​note idea in the bass is unhitched from its earlier third-​ beat placement and begins to move around within the bars: in m. 18, it occurs on the downbeat, in m. 19 on the second beat, in m. 20 on the third, and in m. 21 on the fourth. Both the displacement in the melody and the wandering of the repeated-​note figure result from Schubert’s launching of layers incongruent with those that we expect in 4/​4 meter. The repeated vocal phrase occupies ten quarter-​note pulses (m. 18 to the middle of m. 20, and from the latter point to the end of m. 22). The repeated-​note figure in the bass occurs at intervals of five quarter notes, so that its first and third occurrences coincide with the beginnings of the two ten-​beat vocal segments, and its second and fourth occurrences bisect those segments. We could say that Schubert replaces the expected 8/​4 consonance of 4/​4 time (1=​the quarter note) with the consonance 10/​5. Another way

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  43

Example 1.4  Schubert’s Setting of the Third Stanza, with Analysis of Metrical Dissonance

to conceptualize the metrical situation is to regard the layers of 4/​4 time, which are not clearly articulated on the surface during this section, as continuing in the background, and the 10-​and 5-​layers as subliminally dissonant against them.17 The striking metrical situation that Schubert creates in mm. 18–​24 connects in a remarkable way to the blind boy’s assertion that he organizes his time as he wishes: whereas the 8/​4 consonance of the context suggests the time of the sighted, the 10-​and 5-​layers that govern the setting of the third stanza reflect the blind boy’s independent time.

44  Harald Krebs In the interlude in mm. 24–​25, as in preceding ones, the metrical state of the introduction is restored. The setting of the fourth stanza, occupying mm. 25–​30, is almost identical to that of the second stanza (mm. 11–​15), although it ends, surprisingly, on the dominant instead of the tonic (cf. mm. 15 and 30). As in the corresponding earlier section, the repeated-​note figure and its associated half-​bar displacement disappear. The relative simplicity of this section provides relief from the conflict of mm. 18–​24 and allows us to perceive the layers expected in 4/​4 meter with greater clarity (although the slight blurring achieved by the sixteenth-​note displacement continues unabated in the right hand). At the end of the fourth stanza, the boy mentions the sorrowful aspects of his life, and states that he bears them with patience—​a pensive moment that Schubert reflects with a turn to the parallel minor (m. 29). In his setting of the first line of the final stanza, Schubert dramatizes the boy’s reversion to the recognition that he is happy and rich. The return of the major mode in m. 30 is an obvious aspect of this dramatization, but rhythmic features contribute as well. The striking dynamic accents on weak eighth notes in the piano part of mm. 30 and 31 suggest the spasms associated with a sudden influx of joy.18 The absence of a gap (i.e., a piano interlude) between the final two stanzas enhances the effect of an abrupt upwelling of positive emotion. Furthermore, for the jubilant pronouncement of l. 17, Schubert invents a new vocal rhythm, quite different from those used in earlier sections (Example 1.5a). A quick, dotted anacrusis, leaping upward by a major sixth, in itself suggests joy, and by leading into an elongated presentation of the first syllable of the word glücklich (happy), it helps accentuate that word. The following adjective, reich (rich), is similarly introduced by a quick dotted anacrusis and is similarly sustained.

Example 1.5a Schubert’s Vocal Line in mm. 30–​31

Example 1.5b Hypothetical Vocal Line for mm. 30–​31

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  45 Schubert could have used the initial vocal rhythm of earlier sections for the first line of the final stanza, since the basic poetic rhythm is unchanged—​but that earlier rhythm would not have permitted him to emphasize the crucial adjectives. As the hypothetical vocal line in Example 1.5b demonstrates, the verb bin would have appeared on the strong beats of m. 31 in place of the adjectives, and the boy’s self-​ascription of happiness and wealth would have receded into the metrical background. With the hypothetical rhythm, furthermore, the passage would have sounded much less jubilant. In the following measures, the vocal rhythm to some extent reverts to the regularity of one-​quarter durations between stresses, a rhythm found occasionally in earlier sections, and represented as the hypothetical BRD-​conformant rhythm in Example 1.3a; mm. 33–​34, however, once again emphasize significant words by elongation. The adjective froh, a synonym for glücklich (happy), occupies a dotted quarter-​ note duration, and is further highlighted by a registral accent (it is approached by an octave leap—​the largest leap in the entire vocal line). The last word of the third line, obgleich (although), is significant because it tempers the boy’s prior rejoicing and acknowledges the negative aspects of his condition. Schubert beautifully reflects this turn to the negative by a sudden pianissimo and by the use of the minor subdominant harmony (m. 34). His placement of the stressed syllable of obgleich on a downbeat, and its elongation to a dotted-​quarter duration, contributes to the musical expression of the emotional swerve. Schubert’s declamation throughout this section, with its distinctive mix of short and long durations, is sensitive and appropriate, specifically because it avoids the consistency of the hypothetical BRD-​ conformant vocal rhythm. The elongations and the familiar repetition of the final line result, as in earlier sections, in hypermeasures longer than the four-​bar duration that the hypothetical vocal rhythm would have produced. One more metrical oddity of the final section results from Schubert’s manner of repeating the entire final stanza (mm. 36–​41). The second statement, like the first, is not introduced by a piano interlude. Schubert could have filled most of m. 36 with the sixteenth-​ note pattern (and perhaps some repeated bass notes as well)—​but instead, he starts the dotted anacrusis during the second beat of the bar (as if the blind boy cannot wait to reiterate how happy and rich he is). As a result, the second statement is displaced by half a bar with respect to the first (cf. mm. 30 and 36), and the vocal section ends on a third beat, as opposed to a downbeat (cf. mm. 36 and 41). By adding two extra beats of the sixteenth-​note pattern in m. 41, Schubert undoes the preceding displacement, so that mm. 42–​43 match the metrical alignment of the introduction. The repeated-​note taps, absent since m. 25, return in the postlude. Perhaps we are to imagine that in the last two stanzas the blind boy stands still as he ponders his happiness and the reasons for it, and that now, at the end of the song, he walks onward. It is noteworthy that, having presented two beats of sixteenth-​note arpeggiation in m. 41, Schubert could have presented the tapping

46  Harald Krebs motive on the downbeat of m. 42, thus recreating the usual succession of two beats of sixteenth notes and one beat of eighth-​note taps. Clearly, he wished to maintain to the end the half-​bar displacement that governs the introduction and interludes, just as he wished to continue the metrically blurry sixteenth-​ note accompaniment pattern. It is doubtful that these metrical dissonances are definitively resolved by the single metrically aligned final triad. 1.5 Conclusion My analysis shows that Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe” is saturated with irregular, nonnormative rhythmic and metric structures. It would be possible to conceive of these structures simply as a musical reflection of the blind boy’s nonnormative condition—​his disabled state. To be sure, some of the specific metrically dissonant features of the song suggest aspects of blindness as impairment (the “shimmering” sixteenth-​note figure and the tapping bass notes). But to explain all of the metrical conflict merely as suggesting physical deficit would run counter to the portrait of the blind boy painted in the poetic texts and in the music. Whereas both the original poem and the translation mention the afflictive aspect of blindness, both versions (especially Craigher’s) emphasize the gifts and unique abilities that it brings. Schubert’s music, too, acknowledges the burdens of blindness by setting lines that refer to negative aspects of the boy’s condition in the minor mode.19 But Schubert immediately repeats all of these lines in the major mode, as if to suggest the blind boy’s, and his own, swerve from a negative evaluation of disability toward an affirmative one.20 The predominantly jubilant mood of the final section, with its distinctive dotted anacruses, is another sign that it is his intention to cast the blind boy’s disability in a positive light. It therefore seems appropriate to regard the pervasive nonnormative metrical features of Schubert’s music as symbolizing not disability as deficit, but rather as difference, at which we are invited to look up in awe. We can relate the metrical conflicts to the “disorder” of blindness, not in the sense of a privative or incapacitating deviation from the norm, but in the sense of the “necessary disorder” that Jacques Lusseyran mentions—​that “slight shift” that offers “great opportunity” (2016, 56). It is noteworthy that this “disorder,” this difference, does not require curing or overcoming; hence, it is appropriate that in Schubert’s song the most pervasive metrical dissonances—​those resulting from the sixteenth-​note displacement and from the half-​bar displacement of the tapping eighth notes—​are not resolved (“cured”), but remain active until the very end. Schubert may have felt drawn to the poem “Der blinde Knabe” not only because of his aforementioned personal connections to blindness in general, but also because he sensed the existence of specific parallels between the blind boy and himself. His setting comes from a period of intense physical and emotional suffering, and of equally intense productivity—​a period of coming to terms with an incurable, debilitating illness, and of triumphing in the face of it.21 As Lorraine Byrne Bodley writes, the song is “a reflection of Schubert’s

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  47 extraordinary empathy with the marginal, and his newfound understanding of the kind of inner radiance that emerges through suffering” (2023, 434). His song acknowledges adversity, but leaves us with a powerful sense of the radiance that adversity can bring. After listening to it, we look up in awe not only at the blind boy, but also at Schubert. Notes 1 I thank Lorraine Byrne Bodley, Stefan Honisch, Sharon Krebs, Joseph Straus, Susan Youens, and the editors of this volume for their helpful comments during the preparation of my chapter. 2 A recent article in an ophthalmological journal demonstrates the frequent occurrence of blindness in one genre of music, namely opera; it lists 38 operas that include a blind character (Aydin et al. 2018). The prominence of blindness in music scholarship becomes evident if one scans some of the leading volumes on music and disability. One of the essays in Sounding Off (Moulton 2006) deals with “Blind Tom” Wiggins. Straus (2011) includes a substantial unit on blindness (17–​26). Various aspects of blindness as they relate to music are addressed in the Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies; see especially Sykes, Hogan, Johnson, Fulton, and Cuthbert (2015). 3 Kuusisto’s wording is difficult for sighted individuals to understand. “Series of veils” suggests to me a number of veils that shift rapidly back and forth, obscuring the object behind them. “Shimmer[ing] like beehives” must refer to the motion of a swarm of bees around a hive, which causes the hive to appear to tremble or flicker. 4 Indigence may well be what Cibber had in mind. In the preface to their edition of Thérèse-​Adèle Husson’s writings, the editors point out that in early nineteenth-​ century France blind people came disproportionately from among the poor both because the lower classes made up the majority of the French population in the early nineteenth century and because the major causes of blindness, such as illnesses, poor hygiene, malnutrition, and accidents on the job, were far more likely to accompany poverty. (Kudlick and Weygand 2001, 5) The same was surely true of England in Cibber’s time (and is likely true globally in our own time as well). 5 Line 9 (“My day or night myself I make”) perhaps alludes to “afflatus,” since it describes an almost God-​like act of creation. 6 Straus lists several literary characters as examples of “sweet innocents and charity cripples,” namely Wordsworth’s Idiot Boy, and Dickens’s Smike, Mr. Dick, Tiny Tim, and Barnaby Rudge (Straus 2018, 12). 7 A score of the song is available at https://​imslp.sim​ssa.ca/​files/​imgl​nks/​usimg/​1/​18/​ IMS​LP62​378-​PMLP39​382-​Schubert_​Werke_​Brei​tkop​f_​Se​rie_​XX_​B​and_​8_​F.S.827. pdf (accessed April 10, 2023). A beautiful recording, with mezzo-​soprano Mitsuko Shirai and pianist Hartmut Höll, may be heard at www.yout​ube.com/​watch?v=​K4m6​ qlhk​A0U (accessed April 10, 2023). 8 Klein founded a school for the blind in 1804, published a volume detailing how the blind could be instructed in various subjects (1819) and, in 1826, opened an institute for the training of blind individuals in various trades.

48  Harald Krebs 9 Syphilis can have ocular effects; see Wender et al. (2008). For information about Schubert’s personal connection to blindness and about his returns to his parental home, I am indebted to Lorraine Byrne Bodley, who kindly shared with me substantial portions of her Schubert biography (Byrne Bodley 2023). 10 Graham Johnson’s description of Schubert’s figure as a “tonal analogue for blindness via the workings of the ear” suggests that he connects it to the flickers and shimmers that visually impaired persons might perceive (2014, I/​310). 11 The probable meaning of the repeated bass notes was first mentioned to me by Mitsuko Shirai. Graham Johnson also states that the repeated-​note figure suggests “the tapping of the blind boy’s stick which helps him to get his bearings” (2014, I/​ 310). Lorraine Byrne Bodley has pointed out, in private communication, that this figure is a unique example of Schubert’s skill in evoking human motion through his piano parts—​an example quite different from the regular tramping figures that are so prominent in Winterreise. 12 The pianist can intensify the indirect dissonance by subtly emphasizing the registral accents during the first two beats. The repeated Bbs then arrive as if “out of the blue.” Hartmut Höll performs the opening in this manner in the performance cited earlier. 13 I have discussed the concept of BRD in greater detail in numerous publications (see, e.g., Krebs 2010, 69). 14 On a higher level, the three-​bar segment resulting from the repetition of the line “die niemals ich gekannt” creates symmetry with the three-​bar segment that sets the first couplet. 15 I have adapted the asterisk notation from the work of the linguist Morris Halle and his colleagues, who have worked extensively on poetic stress (see, e.g., Fabb and Halle 2008). 16 I briefly discussed the setting of the third stanza, as well as the metrical dissonances in the opening, in Krebs (2020, 110–​11). I thank the editors, Russell Hartenberger and Ryan McClelland, for giving me permission to reproduce the musical examples associated with my earlier discussion. 17 The concept of subliminal metrical dissonance is discussed in Krebs (1999, 46–​52). 18 The dynamic accents in mm. 30–​31 were not present in the first version of the song; Schubert added them in the second and final version (see Dürr 1985, 164–​65 and 168–​69). 19 Schubert’s first statement of the final line of the first stanza (which refers to the boy’s never having known the joys of sight) alludes to the minor mode with a Phrygian half cadence suggesting the key of D minor (m. 7). The first statements of the final lines of the second, fourth, and final stanzas, in all of which the minor mode is prominent, refer, respectively, to the boy’s ignorance about sunlight (m. 14); his patient bearing of his pain (m. 29); and to his being a “poor blind boy” (mm. 34–​35 and 40). 20 I thank Bryan Parkhurst for drawing my attention to Schubert’s “transvaluation” of Craigher’s references to negative aspects of blindness. 21 In the period 1823–​25, during which he was coming to terms with his diagnosis, Schubert composed, among many other works, Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795), the Octet (D. 803), the String Quartet in A Minor (Rosamunde—​D. 804), the String Quartet in D Minor (Death and the Maiden—​D. 810), and the Arpeggione Sonata (D. 821).

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  49 Bibliography Aydin, Pindar, Robert Ritch, and John O’Dwyer. 2018. “Blindness and Visual Impairment in Opera.” European Journal of Ophthalmology 28: 6–​12. Binder, Benjamin. 2019. “Disability, Self-​ Critique and Failure in Schubert’s ‘Der Doppelgänger’.” In Rethinking Schubert. Edited by Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton, 419–​40. New York: Oxford University Press. Briggs, Peter. 2004. “Nobility, Visibility and Publicity in Colley Cibber’s Apology.” The Scriblerian and the Kit-​Kats 37, no. 2: 5–​6. Byrne Bodley, Lorraine. 2023. Schubert: A Musical Wayfarer. New Haven: Yale University Press. Capell, Richard. 1957. Schubert’s Songs. 2nd edition. New York: Macmillan. Cone, Edward T. 1982. “Schubert’s Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics.” 19th-​Century Music 5, no. 3: 233–​41. Craigher De Jachelutta, Jacob Nikolaus. 1828. Poetische Betrachtungen in freyen Stunden. Vienna: Carl Gerold. Cuthbert, Michael Scott. 2015. “Difference, Disability, and Composition in the Late Middle Ages: Of Antonio ‘Zachara’ da Teramo and Francesco ‘Il Cieco’ da Firenze.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. Edited by Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-​Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, 517–​28. New York: Oxford University Press. Davies, Thomas. 1784. Dramatic Miscellanies Consisting of Critical Observations on Several Plays of Shakespeare: With a Review of His Principal Characters, and Those of Various Eminent Writers, as Represented by Mr. Garrick, and Other Celebrated Comedians. 3 volumes. London: Printed for the Author. Dürr, Walther. 1985. Franz Schubert, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Series IV, Vol. 5a. Kassel: Bärenreiter-​Verlag. Fabb, Nigel and Morris Halle. 2008. Meter in Poetry: A New Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fulton, Will. 2015. “Stevie Wonder’s Tactile Keyboard Mediation, Black Key Compositional Development, and the Quest for Creative Autonomy.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. Edited by Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-​ Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, 272–​ 92. New York: Oxford University Press. Garland-​Thomson, Rosemarie. 2002. “The Politics of Staring: Visual Rhetorics of Disability in Popular Photography.” In Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. Edited by Sharon Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggemann, and Rosemarie Garland-​ Thomson, 56–​75. New York: Modern Language Association of America —​—​—​. 2009. Staring: How We Look. New York: Oxford University Press. Hogan, Brian. 2015. “ ‘They Say We Exchanged Our Eyes for the Xylophone’: Resisting Tropes of Disability as Spiritual Deviance in Birifor Music.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. Edited by Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-​Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, 112–​30. New York: Oxford University Press. Honisch, Stefan Sunandan. 2015. “Moving Experiences: Blindness and the Performing Self in Imre Ungar’s Chopin.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. Edited by Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-​Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, 246–​71. New York: Oxford University Press.

50  Harald Krebs Howe, Blake. 2009. “The Allure of Dissolution: Bodies, Forces, and Cyclicity in Schubert’s Final Mayrhofer Settings.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 62, no. 2: 271–​322. —​—​—​Stephanie Jensen-​Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, eds. 2015. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. New York: Oxford University Press. Hyer, Brian. 2008. “Mimetic Failure and the Autistic Sublime in a Schubert Song.” Paper delivered at the conference of the American Musicological Society in Nashville, TN. Johnson, Graham. 2014. Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs. 3 volumes. New Haven: Yale University Press. Johnson, Shersten. 2015. “Understanding is Seeing: Music Analysis and Blindness.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. Edited by Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-​Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, 131–​52. New York: Oxford University Press. Kleege, Georgina. 2013. “Blindness and Visual Culture: An Eyewitness Account.” In The Disability Studies Reader. Edited by Lennard J. Davis, 447–​55. New York: Routledge. Klein, Johann Wilhelm. 1819. Lehrbuch zum Unterrichte der Blinden, um ihnen ihren Zustand zu erleichtern, sie nützlich zu beschäftigen und sie zur bürgerlichen Brauchbarkeit zu bilden [Manual for the Instruction of the Blind, to Ease their Condition, to Occupy them in a Useful Manner, and to Educate them Toward Usefulness in Society]. Wien: Carl Schaumburg und Comp. —​—​—​, ed. 1827. Lieder für Blinde und von Blinden [Songs for the Blind and by the Blind]. Vienna: Published at the Cost of the Editor for the Benefit of the Blind in Vienna. Korsyn, Kevin. 2003. Decentering Music. New York: Oxford University Press. Krebs, Harald. 1999. Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann. New York: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2010. “Fancy Footwork: Distortions of Poetic Rhythm in Robert Schumann’s Late Songs.” Indiana Theory Review 28: 67–​84. —​—​—​. 2020. “Expressive Rhythm and Meter in the German Lied.” In The Cambridge Companion to Rhythm. Edited by Russell Hartenberger and Ryan McClelland, 97–​ 118. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kudlick, Catherine J. and Zina Weygand, eds. 2001. Reflections: The Life and Writings of a Young Blind Woman in Post-​ Revolutionary France. New York: New York University Press. Kuusisto, Stephen. 1998. Planet of the Blind. New York: The Dial Press. Lerner, Neil and Joseph Straus, eds. 2006. Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music. New York and London: Routledge. Lusseyran, Jacques. 2014. And There Was Light: The Extraordinary Memoir of a Blind Hero of the French Resistance in World War II. Translated by Elizabeth R. Cameron. Novato: New World Library. —​—​—​. 2016. Against the Pollution of the I: On the Gifts of Blindness, the Power of Poetry, and the Urgency of Awareness. Novato: New World Library. McGirr, Elaine M. 2016. Partial Histories: A Reappraisal of Colley Cibber. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Moulton, Stephanie. 2006. “Finding Autism in the Compositions of a 19th-​Century Prodigy: Reconsidering ‘Blind Tom’ Wiggins.” In Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music. Edited by Lerner, Neil and Joseph Straus, 199–​ 215. New York and London: Routledge.

Disability and Metrical Conflict in Schubert’s “Der blinde Knabe”  51 Straus, Joseph. 2006. “Normalizing the Abnormal: Disability in Music and Music Theory.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 59, no. 1: 113–​84. –​–​–​–​–​. 2011. Extraordinary Measures: Disability in Music. New York: Oxford University Press. –​–​–​–​–​. 2018. Broken Beauty: Musical Modernism and the Representation of Disability. New York: Oxford University Press. Sykes, Ingrid. 2015. “The Politics of Sound: Music and Blindness in France, 1750–​ 1830.” In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. Edited by Blake Howe, Stephanie Jensen-​ Moulton, Neil Lerner, and Joseph Straus, 92–​ 111. New York: Oxford University Press. Wender, Jon D., Dean Elliott, J. Michael Jumper, and Emmett T. Cunningham Jr. 2008. “How to Recognize Ocular Syphilis.” Review of Opthalmology (20 November). www.review​ofop​htha​lmol​ogy.com/​arti​cle/​how-​to-​recogn​ize-​ocu​lar-​syphi​lis (accessed April 10, 2023).

2 Rethinking Self-​Referentiality in Schubert’s Setting of Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” D. 751 (op. 23, no. 1)* René Rusch 2.1  Closure and Frames It would be difficult to ignore the impact that the New Criticism (ca. 1935) has had on the ways in which we engage with music, especially nineteenth-​century composers’ settings of lyric poetry.1 Just as the New Criticism positioned interpretation at the forefront of its enterprise, advocating for approaches that “show how [a poem’s] various parts contribute to a thematic unity” (Culler 1985, 4), so, too, has music theory scholarship aimed to demonstrate through close(d) readings how a song’s musical and textual components—​especially those that seem unusual or extraneous—​“perform,” or carry out, what the poetic text or, more specifically, the self-​referential “I” of the lyric poem verbalizes about itself and its view of the external world. By showing how the various components of the music and text convey a unified assertion of the poem’s (and poet’s2) position, a song may be depicted as a well-​wrought urn,3 an autonomous object that enacts what it describes.4 Why has music scholarship tended to gravitate toward this privileged context?5 If a poetic text has the capacity not only to delimit the relationships between signifiers (sound-​images) and signifieds (concepts) but also to assert its position through an “I” that is self-​reflexive, it can appear to offer analysis a stable ground for drawing conclusions about musical meaning: analysis need only suggest that it functions as a neutral observer, an outside discourse looking in. Whereas in Schubert’s Moment Musical in A-​flat Major, D. 780 (op. 94), no. 6, for instance, we can only speculate that the dramatic trajectory of the unresolved E-​natural, initially introduced in m. 12 (Example 2.1), signifies the different stages of the composer’s illness (Cone 1982), in a song we may be able to make more definitive conclusions about the meaning of similarly unusual musical moments by appealing to the poem. The poetic text of a song can appear to make perplexing musical phenomena intelligible, because the phenomena are attached to a language that belongs to an “I” who speaks and self-​reflects. A reading of the final measures of Schubert’s setting of the prepublished version of August von Platen’s lyric poem “Die Liebe hat gelogen” (Love has lied), D. 751 (op. 23, no. 1) (1822),6 offers a brief illustration of this hermeneutic DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-5

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  53

Example 2.1 Schubert’s “Moment Musical in A-​flat major,” D. 780 (op. 94), no. 6, mm. 1–​19

practice (Example 2.2). To set the stage for this analysis, let us first revisit one anonymous nineteenth-​century critic’s ambivalent critique of Schubert’s approach to modulation, from a review of four collections of Schubert songs (one of which includes “Die Liebe hat gelogen”) that were published between 1817 and 1823.7 As the critic summarizes, the way Schubert sets the songs “seeks to make up for the want of inner unity, order and regularity by eccentricities which are hardly or not at all justified” (Deutsch 1947, 353). He then remarks about “Die Liebe hat gelogen” that whether in Op. 23 No. 1 the progressions in the third bar from the end were intentionally written as being truly new and original, although sufficiently hideous, or whether they are misprints, the reviewer dare not venture to decide, for all that he has some reason to believe the former. (354) The critic’s disdain for such “rather wild goings-​on” in the four collections of songs emphasizes his opening thesis, that “Herr F. S. does not write songs, properly speaking, and has no wish to do so … but free vocal pieces, some so free that they might possibly be called caprices or fantasias” (353), a characterization of Schubert’s compositional style that becomes a theme and variations in other reviews of the composer’s works in the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung.8 Toward the end of the critic’s review, he situates Schubert’s approach to modulation within what he perceives as music composition’s broader trend—​the tendency to modulate too much, which he likens to “a veritable disease” that “threatens to grow into a modulation-​mania” (355). His perspective on modulation resonates with those of other nineteenth-​century critics, who shared his contempt for the ways in which the fantasia, as both a genre and an aesthetic, permeated music during this period.9

54  René Rusch

Example 2.2 Schubert’s Setting of August von Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” D. 751 (op. 23, no. 1)

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  55

Example 2.2  (Continued)

56  René Rusch One way we could respond to this critic’s assessment of the harmonic progression in the antepenultimate measure (m. 16) as well as the song’s striking ending in the major mode (again, see Example 2.2) would be to appeal to the poet’s assertion, “Die Liebe hat gelogen.” The enharmonic reinterpretation of the F-​major-​minor seventh chord as a German augmented sixth chord (of F–​A–​C–​Eb as F–​A–​C–​D#)—​a shift that emerges when we hear its striking resolution to the A-minor 6/​4 chord, together with the voice’s bold leap to E-​natural on beat 3—​might be interpreted as a musical signifier for betrogen: as the poet cries out “Betrogen, ach, betrogen/​Hat alles mich umher!” Eb betrays its hidden identity as D#, and the tonal center momentarily shifts to A minor before settling in C major.10 The music in the last three measures may thus appear to enact the poet’s self-​referential description of his reaction to the betrayal by leading both the harmonic progression and prevailing C-​minor tonality astray toward a deceitful ending in the parallel major mode. Not only has love lied; everything that surrounds the poet—​perhaps signified at this point in the song by the C-​major mode within which the poet sings—​has also deceived.11 This reading of the last three measures may lend support to what might be interpreted as the song’s core “theme,” or unifying idea—​deception—​ from which the remaining interpretations of the song’s text-​music relationships emanate. If, as Jonathan Culler suggests, “[o]‌ne important function of the notion of self-​referentiality, especially in the New Criticism, has been to make masterable a situation of potential excess and proliferation” (1985, 51),12 a hermeneutic analysis of the text-​music relationships in “Die Liebe hat gelogen” in m. 16 and elsewhere might similarly aim to show how the strange, excessive modulations that the nineteenth-​century critic alludes to collectively underscore the poet’s declaration of having been deceived. While questions revolving around self-​referentiality can be relevant to analyses of instrumental works,13 they are unavoidably involved in approaches to text-​music analysis because of the ways in which a poem can be used to support conclusions about musical meaning. This is not to suggest that analyses never show how a poetic text and its musical setting disagree; indeed, there are compelling examples in music scholarship that illustrate this possibility.14 Yet, even in situations where the two components are held to conflict, self-​referentiality may still be operative: an attempt to demonstrate how a poetic text and its musical setting diverge may nonetheless rely on the idea that the text and music each carry out what each appears to assert. The same conclusion may apply to situations where the text and music are viewed as cooperative partners, with each enriching the other. What can often appear as parergonal to determinations about musical meaning, of which will be the focus of this essay, is the structure, or “frame,” that imbues the poetic text and music, and hence, the meaning of a song, a sense of stability in an interpretive act. Such frames especially come into focus when moments in a work appear to place stress on an interpretive act. To return to the reading of “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” although m. 16 may be rationalized under the aegis of deception, why do both the first stanza and the entire song conclude in C major, a key area that has been more

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  57 commonly associated with purity, truth, and light (Bribitzer-​Stull 2006, 173)? Relatedly, why does Schubert alter the structure of Platen’s poem by returning to the entire first stanza, which, as mentioned earlier, modulates once more from C minor to C major? Such musical riddles may lead us to ask whether the treatment of the topic of deception in “Die Liebe hat gelogen” is itself deceptive. As Kevin Korsyn (1991, 1993, 2001, 2003) has suggested in a number of influential writings, poststructuralist perspectives not only invite us to further examine the discursive constructions that inform the ways in which we conceive our disciplinary objects and engage with them (2003, 85), but also encourage us to explore “new metaphors for conceptualizing discursive space” (2001, 56). If “[m]‌usic analysis treats pieces as closed, static entities” (55), Korsyn proposes that analysis might instead, for instance, view works “as networks or relational events” (56) or conceive a work as an “irreducible heterogeneity” of musical utterances, as opposed to a dialectical unity that promotes closure by “reducing difference to sameness” (62). This discussion will take a different yet related approach to rethinking some of the conditions that permit closure—​ here with regard to text-​music analysis. In an effort to rethink self-​referentiality, which has tended to function as a hermetic seal that restricts the interpretive act by rendering meaning as determinate, I will explore Schubert’s text-​setting of Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen” from a poststructuralist position, using Jacques Derrida’s discussion of the parergon in The Truth in Painting ([1978] 1987) as a point of departure.15 I will attempt to show how Derrida’s conception of the parergon, an apparent remainder or supplement to a work of art that emerges from the act of framing, can call into question a song’s signifying processes in ways that problematize self-​description and self-​possession.16 The objective of this exercise is twofold: (1) to further contemplate the conditions that enable us to devise stable conclusions about the meaning of text-​music relationships and (2) to suggest that, similar to a poet’s linguistic assertions, analytical discourse (including this discussion) might be conceived of as a form of epideixis, a literary performance that invites readers to contemplate an author’s representation of phenomena that have been deemed praiseworthy (or blameworthy).17 2.2  Parerga We might begin to rethink self-​referentiality in “Die Liebe hat gelogen” by exploring the consequences that arise from interpreting the events in Platen’s poem and Schubert’s text-​setting around the theme of deception. What does such a frame produce? In addition to creating a center for which to read the components of the song—​an operation that facilitates unity and that helps enable the work to be regarded as an autonomous object—​the frame generates boundaries, delineating between that which is believed to be essential to the work, the ergon, and that which is understood to be an accessory, the parergon. Examples of parerga, which Derrida discusses in relation to his critique

58  René Rusch of Kant’s conception of the parergon in the Critique of Judgement [Kritik der Urteilskraft] ([1790] 1924), are the drapery on the body of a statue, the columns of a building, and the frame that surrounds a painting. As Derrida summarizes of Kant’s position, a parergon has the capacity to influence an aesthetic judgement and should therefore not detract from a work’s “genuine beauty” (Meredith 1911, 65, 67–​68; Derrida [1978] 1987, 53). The gilded frame, for instance, may “recommend the painting to our attention by its attraction (Reiz),” or charm, yet it can also damage “the beauty of the work” by leading the viewer astray (Derrida [1978] 1987, 64). Although Derrida acknowledges that an aesthetic judgement necessarily rests upon the distinction between an ergon and a parergon in its evaluation of the internal beauty of a work, he raises doubts as to whether we can resolutely determine whether phenomena are essential or supplemental, and whether we can know for certain where a parergon begins and ends (57): [T]‌he whole analytic of aesthetic judgment forever assumes that one can distinguish rigorously between the intrinsic and the extrinsic. Aesthetic judgment must properly bear upon intrinsic beauty, not on finery and surrounds. Hence one must know—​this is a fundamental presupposition, presupposing what is fundamental—​how to determine the intrinsic—​what is framed—​and know what one is excluding as frame and outside-​the-​frame. We are thus already at the unlocatable center of the problem. (63; italics in the original) As Derrida continues, defining what constitutes a parergon can be difficult because of the way in which it functions in relation to its ergon. While a parergon may appear to serve as an accessory to an ergon that seems complete in and of itself, it nonetheless fills a void or lack by delimiting the ergon’s boundaries; the parergon imparts a stability to its ergon by outlining what is constitutive, or essential, thereby facilitating the possibility for the ergon to be conceived as closed and unified (59–​60): The parergon inscribes something which comes as an extra, exterior to the proper field … but whose transcendent exteriority comes to play, abut onto, brush against, rub, press against the limit itself and intervene in the inside only to the extent that the inside is lacking. (56; italics in the original) Rather than view the parergon as that which is merely beyond or beside (para-​) a work (ergon) (Speake and LaFlaur [1999] 2002), Derrida proposes instead that parerga may be deemed parerga “not because they are detached but on the contrary, because they are very difficult to detach and above all because without them, without their quasi-​detachment, the lack on the inside of the work would appear” ([1978] 1987, 59). In seeking to reexamine the very structure

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  59 that undergirds aesthetic judgements, Derrida thus aims not to merely reverse the hierarchy between a parergon and its ergon, but to rather call into question the former’s ontological status by contemplating how it may be construed as essential. The parergon—​“[n]‌either simply outside nor simply inside” (54)—​ emerges through the act of framing, which, as Korsyn summarizes, “is always contingent” (2003, 90). Returning to “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” which components might be construed as parergonal to a reading of the poem around the notion of deception, and how might they intervene in such a way that addresses a lack in the ergon, as framed? Or put differently, what parerga enable deception to emerge as a potential center? We could turn to the words in the poetic text that are related to gelogen, such as betrogen, Sorge, and Tropfen (Example 2.3), yet none of them would as effectively establish the boundaries for the apparent meaning of the poet’s pronouncement as that which is not deception, truth.18 The possibility that truth could serve as a parergon that brings the boundaries of deception into being (Example 2.4a) can call into question whether the poet’s epideictic rhetoric,19 a discourse that in this poem blames rather than praises, is itself true or false:20 although the poet declares that love has lied in both the title and first line of the poem, could the pronouncement paradoxically suggest that love has been truthful by revealing to the poet the betrayal? Or conversely, had love not lied, would it, in turn, have been lying by falsely

Die Liebe hat gelogen, Die Sorge lastet schwer, Betrogen, ach, betrogen Hat alles mich umher!

Love lied, Sorrow weighs heavily, Deceived, ah, deceived By all around me (am I)!

Es fließen heiße Tropfen Die Wange stets herab, Laß ab, mein Herz, zu klopfen, Du armes Herz, laß ab!

Hot tears flow Continuously down my cheeks, Cease, my heart, to beat You poor heart, cease!

Example 2.3 Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen.” Pre-​published Version. English Translation by Deborah Stein (1989, 111)

Example 2.4a Truth as a Parergon

Example 2.4b Deception as a Parergon

60  René Rusch suggesting that it had been truthful? Would the love that the poet could have praised through an alternative epideictic discourse (e.g., Love was true) have been a lie, leading us to characterize the poet’s sentiments as naive, instead of scornful? From the phrase “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” two antithetical statements might thus emerge: one that aligns with the notion of deception (love lied) and the other with the notion of truth (love was true). Truth, which had lain on the border of an interpretation centered around deception, not only fills a lack that the poet’s epideictic discourse relies upon, but may also generate a “gap” in the poet’s utterance that calls into question the unity of the poet’s assertion21: the poet speaks of having been deceived, yet the possibility that the utterance paradoxically communicates truth problematizes the self-​ referentiality of his linguistic expression, disrupting the boundaries between inside and outside. This gap may suggest an alternative, provisional reading of Schubert’s setting where truth (as opposed to deception) may serve as a center for a hermeneutic interpretation of the song’s modulations (Example 2.4b), including the two shifts to C major. More critically, the gap may lead us to ask whether the poet’s utterance describes or creates a reality, a question that we may not be able to conclusively answer. The notion that lyric poems were initially intended to “address the ear” (Frye 1957, 278) may bring to the fore two other components that cooperatively function as a parergon to the poet’s self-​referential expressions.22 Before going further, I invite readers to recite aloud the version of Platen’s poem shown in Example 2.3 and, while reading, to consider the patterns of speech sounds and visual images that may emerge:

(recitation)

The first two lines orally/​aurally establish the iambic rhythm of the poem, beginning with a line of seven syllables and then six. Although these two lines (and the entire poem) are written in iambic trimeter, the extra syllable at the end of line 1, which might be construed as the last syllable of an amphibrach, may lead us to add a silent half foot at the end of line 1 and a full foot at the end of line 2, as though the poem were set in quadruple meter (4/​4) (Example 2.5a). From these lines, we may be able to anticipate the song-​like rhythm of the entire stanza (Example 2.5b), allowing us to shift our focus to the playful combination of speech sounds that, too, coalesce into a pattern. Northrop Frye refers to this dimension of lyric poetry as melos, or “babble,”

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  61

Example 2.5a “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” Poetic Meter, Lines 1–​2

Example 2.5b “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” Anticipated Poetic Meter, Stanza 1

one of two components that underlies lyric poetry and that enables the lyric poem to resemble a charm, or incantation (1957, 275): In babble [melos], rhyme, assonance, alliteration, and puns develop out of sound-​associations. The thing that gives shape to the associating is what we have been calling the rhythmic initiative … The radical of melos is charm: the hypnotic incantation that, through its pulsing dance rhythm, appeals to involuntary physical response, and is hence not far from the sense of magic, or physically compelling power. (275 and 278) The other dimension of the lyric poem that we may come across as we read “Die Liebe hat gelogen” aloud is opsis, or “doodle”—​the verbal design (or visual design, if reading the poem on a page) that emerges from the play between the poem’s visual imagery, potential meanings, and stanzaic structure, which, when taken together, enable the poem to resemble a riddle, or “semantic puzzle” (Culler 2015, 139 and 257): The first rough sketches of verbal design (“doodle” [opsis]) in the creative process are hardly separable from associative babble … [T]‌he radical of opsis in the lyric is riddle, which is characteristically a fusion of sensation and reflection, the use of an object of sense experience to stimulate a mental activity in connection with it. (Frye 1957, 278 and 280) Like the ornamental frame or other parerga, “the very place of free beauty” (Culler 2007, 197), melos and opsis, or babble and doodle, might be construed

62  René Rusch

Example 2.6 Melos (babble) and Opsis (doodle) as Parerga

as the site where we encounter a play among the poem’s rhythm and speech sounds (the lyrical, or musical dimension of the poem), and its visual images (Example 2.6). These components cooperatively lend a shape or silhouette to the poet’s epideictic discourse, with babble facilitating sound associations and patterns, and doodle giving rise to visual patterns.23 There are a number of places in Platen’s poem where babble and doodle give life to the poet’s epideictic discourse. The third line, for instance, not only begins to establish the ABAB rhyme scheme on syllables 5–​7, inviting us to perceive a connection between gelogen and betrogen, but also anticipates the rhyme on syllables 1–​3 (Betrogen, ach, betrogen), generating a sense of urgency in the poet’s utterance. The fourth line breaks the previous pattern of soft “a”s on the fourth syllable (hat, las[tet], and ach) with a surprising long “i” in mich,24 a contrast further emphasized by the softer vowel sounds that immediately surround it (Hat alles mich umher). Here the vowel substitution can especially draw our attention to the self-​reflexive “I” of the poet, whose physical presence becomes more pronounced in the second stanza. The substitution on the word mich might also highlight the transition between the poetic content of the two stanzas, from the poet’s declaration of having been deceived by the external world to the pending turn inward when he describes his somatic response to the deception. Amid the play between speech sounds and images, the sounds in the second stanza may appear to duplicate those of the images that the poet describes: for we may not only hear the heiße Tropfen (hot tears) in our pronunciation of the three “esses” in Es fließen heiße, as well as the knock of the beating heart in the hard consonant “k” in klopfen, but also begin to associate the image of the beating heart with the benign, steady iambic rhythm that pervades the entire poem when the poet implores “Laß ab, mein Herz, zu klopfen.” The way in which sound and image come together may seem even more pronounced when we compare these two last lines in this prepublished version of the poem to those in the published version (compare Examples 2.3 and 2.7). Whereas in the prepublished version, the heart is immediately linked to the poet’s plea (Laß ab, mein Herz), in the published version, the poet repeats laß ab three times before the signified object (mein Herz) is revealed. At this point, I invite readers to recite aloud the published version in its entirety (Example 2.7):

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  63 Die Liebe hat gelogen, Die Sorge lastet schwer, Betrogen, ach, betrogen Hat alles mich umher!

Love has lied, Anxiety weighs heavily, Betrayed, alas betrayed By everything around me!

Es rinnen heiße Tropfen Die Wange stets herab, Laß ab, laß ab zu klopfen, Laß ab, mein Herz, laß ab.

Hot tears stream Steadily down my cheek, Let up, let up from pounding Let up, my heart, let up.

Example 2.7  Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen” from Vermischte Schriften (1822). Published Version. English Translation by Kristina Muxfeldt (1996, 481)

(recitation)

It is in these last four lines in both versions of the poem that the iambic rhythm and speech sounds seem to connect with the textual imagery of the body, especially the heart. Toward the end of the poem, the heart/​iambic rhythm continues to beat (perhaps in our inner ear even after the poem has ended) despite the poet’s direct plea for the heart, whom he directly addresses in the prepublished version (“Du armes Herz”), to desist. We might identify, then, at least two parerga at work in Platen’s poem, both of which delimit the poet’s self-​ referential, linguistic expressions: (1) truth, which the poet’s declaration of deception relies upon; and (2) melos and opsis—​the play among the poem’s rhythm, speech sounds, and images, from which sound and visual patterns emerge. When reading the poem aloud, we not only repeat the poet’s self-​ reflexive turn from the external to the internal; our engagement with melos and opsis can bring into consciousness our own subjective experience of reading the poem—​the underlying regularity of the iambic rhythm, the anticipation of the next rhyme, the potential associations between the consonances and visual imagery (Es fließen heiße Tropfen; klopfen), and so forth.25 We are not only introduced to the image of the beating heart near the end of the second stanza but may also have been charmed by the hypnotic incantation of the iambic rhythm that permeates the entire poem. One riddle that might emerge along these lines is the gradual association of the iambic rhythm with the beating heart, which is visually emphasized by the internal commas that divide the iambic feet near the end of the second

64  René Rusch stanza.26 Seemingly related to this riddle is the conspicuous absence of the beloved, whom the poet can only address through apostrophes—​die Liebe (love), mein Herz (my heart), and du armes Herz (you poor heart)—​figures that also become associated with the iambic rhythm. Although the poet does not directly address the beloved, the beloved emerges as a central presence through omission. 2.3  Musical Riddles If we interpret the poet’s self-​ referential pronouncement, “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” as a closed, unified assertion, a music analysis might attempt to show how the text-​setting can call into question our perception of certain musical phenomena, and how such efforts to persuade the ear may function as musical analogs for deception. The enharmonic relationships throughout the song offer us one example where such duplicity may be operative. The first chromatic pitch, Db (m. 1), for instance, that colors the C-​minor mode may initially be regarded as ^b2, only to be reinterpreted shortly thereafter as C# (m. 5), ^#1 of C major. Although Db and C# may be construed as enharmonic duals—​both, in this case, sounding in the same register and proceeding to C-​natural—​the context within which each pitch appears aurally suggests that Db points to the flat side of harmonic space and C#, the sharp side. Both chromatic pitches return in the B section as the chordal roots of a Db-​major triad (m. 9.1) and a C#-​minor triad (m. 10.1), which sound in close proximity, yet the harmonic context can blur their enharmonic distinction. If we hear the Db-​major triad as the subdominant of Ab major, the C#-​minor triad may initially be perceived as the minor subdominant of Ab major (from Db major, m. 9.1, to “Db minor,” m. 10.1). Whereas the enharmonic shift between the two triads as notated (from Db major to C# minor) attempts to transport us to the sharp side of harmonic space once more, the progression as heard without the score can convince us of the very opposite—​that the sequential repetition (mm. 10–​11) of the initial two-​bar harmonic progression (mm. 8–​9) a half-​step higher intends to lead us toward the unruly terrain of the double-​flat side of harmonic space. The moment when the music crosses the enharmonic seam (mm. 9–​10) may thus appear to introduce a perceptual conundrum: although we may hear the bass ascend a perfect fourth (from Ab to Db), the bass instead moves an augmented third (from Ab to C#). The way in which Schubert repositions the iambic lines in the 4/​4 meter during the B section (mm. 8–​13) may offer us another example where the music appears to deceive. In the outer A sections (mm. 3–​6 +​m. 7; mm. 14–​17 +​ m. 18), the first syllable of every iambic line in stanza 1 sounds as a pickup to the downbeat of the following measure. Comparatively, the first syllable of the first two lines of stanza 2 (mm. 8–​11) is displaced by one-​quarter note in the 4/​4 meter, a shift that may gradually lead us to reinterpret the strong beats as weak beats and the weak beats as strong beats (Example 2.827). The suspension figures (mm. 8.2, 8.4, 9.2, 10.2, 10.4, and m. 11.2), cadential 6/​ 4 chords

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  65

Example 2.8 Schubert, “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 7–​13

(mm. 9.2 and 11.2), and resolutions of each local dominant harmony (m. 8.4, m. 9.4, m. 10.4, and m. 11.4) may aim to further persuade us of the rebarring, with the “leading” suspensions (mm. 8.2, 9.2, 10.2, and 11.2) and cadential 6/​4 chords appearing on the supposed downbeats of the measure. The metrical

66  René Rusch illusion appears to break in the latter half of the B section, when the first syllable of each poetic line resumes its prior position as a pickup to the downbeat of the next measure (mm. 12–​13). Other musical details that may support a reading of the poem around the theme of deception may include moments of text painting. Compared to the outer sections of the song, which provide a stark landscape for the poet’s declaration, the B section, where the poet describes his somatic response, offers a lively contrast with its melodic suspensions and offbeat rhythmic accompaniment. Just as we may hear the hot tears in the speech sounds Es fließen heiße [Tropfen] when we read the poem aloud, so, too, may we now hear the tears quietly fall with each melodic suspension or implied suspension (Es fließen heiße Tropfen/​Die Wange stets herab) (again, see Example 2.8, mm. 8–​9 and mm. 10–​11). The change in musical texture initiated by the offbeat rhythm in the accompaniment may also bring into consciousness the beating heart, which had become associated with the iambic rhythm in our reading of Platen’s poem. Unlike in the poem, the heart in Schubert’s setting appears to abide by the poet’s request (Laß ab, mein Herz ...); the offbeat rhythm comes to an arresting halt on the fourth quarter note (m. 13), remaining silent thereafter as ^2 resonates in the voice. We could further develop a reading of Schubert’s song along these lines, yet we may come across at least two musical riddles that interrupt the process of attempting to rationalize all of the song’s components by the notion of deception. The first enigma concerns the two modal shifts from C minor to C major. The C-​minor tonality, in its topical associations, carries a dramatic tenor unmatched by any other key, as evidenced not only in works composed by Schubert’s predecessors,28 but also in his Symphony in C minor, D. 417 (1816)—​for which he later appended the word “Tragische” to its title (Deutsch [1951] 1995, 187)—​ and certain Lieder, such as “Der greise Kopf ” from Winterreise, D. 911 (1827), and “Kriegers Ahnung” from Schwanengesang, D. 957 (1828). If the C-​minor tonality in “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” in conjunction with the song’s Langsam tempo marking, the vocal line’s dotted rhythms, and the accompaniment’s dactylic rhythm and homophonic chords, leads us to associate deception with the tragic and, more specifically, the funereal, it seems plausible that one or both outer sections of the small ternary design could have remained in C minor (Examples 2.9a and 2.9b). Why, then, do both sections conclude in C major? Are we to interpret the two modal shifts as musical signifiers for deception, whereby we not only hear the poet speak of the deception but also aurally identify the very sound of deception, as suggested earlier? Or if the modal shifts from C minor to C major may signify resignation, are we to infer that the poet has reluctantly accepted the betrayal not once, but twice?29 The second, related question concerns the two textual repetitions—​lines 1–​2 of the second stanza (Es fließen heiße Tropfen ...) (mm. 10–​11) and the entire first stanza (mm. 14–​17 +​18). (At this point in our discussion, we might contemplate the potential motivations for these repetitions by resetting Platen’s

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  67

Example 2.9a  “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 5–​ 7 Recomposed (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 5–​7)

poem as a small binary theme, either with or without the repetition of the second stanza’s two lines; see Examples 2.9c and 2.9d30). Perhaps we could justify the first textual repetition by proposing: The poet becomes more inflamed as the hot tears continue to flow. This is musically conveyed by the sequential repetition of mm. 8–​9 a half-​step higher in mm. 10–​11, the crossing of an enharmonic seam toward the sharp side of harmonic space in mm. 9–​10, and the added crescendo in m. 10. Determining why the entire first stanza returns, though, may be more difficult. If we conclude that the second C-​major shift dramatizes the poet’s deception, why does the very last measure remain in C major, when it could have been rewritten in C minor (Example 2.9e)?31 Or if the change in harmonic design in mm. 15–​17 lends support to the idea that the poet only accepts the betrayal near the end of the song, why does the first A section end in the major mode, when it could have remained in C minor? Reframing Schubert’s song around the notion of truth, which had lain on the periphery of a reading centered on deception, could help us develop an

68  René Rusch

Example 2.9b “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 16–​18 Recomposed (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 16–​18)

alternative rationale for the two shifts to C major and the first stanza’s return. In the first A section, the harmonic assonance between the C-​minor progression I–​VI in the antecedent phrase (mm. 3–​4) and its chromaticized C-​major version Inatural–​VI♯ in the consequent phrase (mm. 5–​6) may invite us to hear a gap in the poet’s self-​reflexive assertion “Betrogen, ach, betrogen/​Hat alles mich umher!”: the poet speaks of having been betrayed, yet the modal shift to C major may suggest the opposite, that love has been true. The voicing of the two progressions can further highlight this gap, where the distinction between deception and truth hangs in the balance between the poignant shift between Eb and E-​natural in the vocal line and accompaniment (compare m. 3 and m. 5), which respectively define the parallel minor and major modes. That the music settles in the major mode may point to the conclusion that the poet’s assertion is false, an interpretation that might be further supported by an appeal to the affective key associations mentioned earlier (e.g., C major with truth and C minor with grief).32 The return of the A section (mm. 14–​18) may similarly accentuate the potential gap in the poet’s utterance, not only by both repeating the same

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  69

Example 2.9c “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 8–​13 Recomposed as Part 2 of a Small Binary Theme (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 8–​13)

text and reintroducing the modal shift between C minor and C major, but also by rendering the perceptual relationship between the two closely related tonalities as more distant. Whereas in the opening A section, C major arose through a simple modal shift—​its direct relationship to C minor communicated by harmonic assonance, voicing, and rhythmic parity—​in

70  René Rusch

Example 2.9d “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” mm. 8–​13 Recomposed as Part 2 of a Small Binary Theme, without the Textual Repetition (cf. Example 2.2, mm. 8–​13)

the A’ section, it is reintroduced through much more complicated means. Both the resetting of Sorge with Db (^b2) instead of D-​natural (^natural 2) (compare m. 4 and m. 15) and the tonicization of the minor subdominant (m. 15) appear to darken the sound of C minor in a manner that may recall the song’s first two measures, which similarly contrast Db with D-​natural and introduce the Db–​C minor second, here as a melodic descent rather than as a harmonic dissonance (compare m. 1.3 and m. 15.1). When the pivotal E-​natural returns, Schubert surprisingly aligns the mode-​defining pitch with the third iambic foot of the poetic line (“Betrogen, ach, betrogen”) as opposed to the first iambic foot (“Betrogen, ach, betrogen”). More strikingly, E-​natural emerges as the resolution of a startling enharmonic reinterpretation (from Eb to D#) before becoming ^3 of C major (mm. 17–​ 18). Altogether, the darkening of the C-​minor mode and the striking modulation to C major can create the aural illusion that the distance from C minor to its compeer, C major, is much further—​perhaps making more pronounced the gap between the poet’s assertion (love has lied) and the erroneousness of this assertion (love was true), and more broadly, the song’s deceptive treatment of Platen’s poem.

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  71

Example 2.9e “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” m. 18 Recomposed (cf. Example 2.2, m. 18)

2.4  Temporal Deferrals As the earlier discussion suggests, at least four parerga might emerge when attempting to analyze Platen’s poem and Schubert’s text-​setting around the notion of deception: truth, melos and opsis, one or both modal shifts to C major, and the return of the A’ section. Each parergon can be difficult to detach from the ergon as framed and can problematize attempts to analyze the song as a closed, unified expression. Positioning truth in the center of our hermeneutic reading may help us make sense of the two modal shifts (including the song’s ending in the major mode) and the return of the A’ section, as briefly explored earlier. Yet such an inversion of hierarchy between an ergon and a parergon (Example 2.10a) may call into question the ontologies of the intrinsic and extrinsic, to recall Derrida’s position once more, as well as the relationship between the two antithetical readings. If we try to reconcile the readings by allowing them to coexist, such a view would not be able to resolve the apparent contradiction: for what is truth if it can be deception, and what is deception if it can be truth? If deception and truth instead delimit one another, such an indefinite structure may open up the possibility for a third reading, one which aims to show

72  René Rusch

Example 2.10a Two Readings of Platen’s Poem and Schubert’s Setting

Example 2.10b Third Reading of Platen’s Poem and Schubert’s Setting. Deception and Truth Frame One Another

in Schubert’s setting of Platen’s poem how truth frames deception, and deception, truth in ways that resist closure (Example 2.10b). The oscillation between the C-​minor and C-​major tonalities (mm. 4–​5, 7–​8, 12–​13, 16–​17), along with the enharmonic duals (Db/​C# and D#/​Eb) and surface mixture (mm. 1−2, 6−7, and 18), for example, might instead be interpreted as a temporal deferral of the true or falseness of the poet’s assertion (e.g., love has lied, love has been truthful, love has lied ...), a variant of the two drawings in Example 2.10a combined, which positions deception and truth spatially. Each component that lies on the periphery may paradoxically become present through its absence (i.e., deception cannot exist without truth, nor truth without deception). In sum, self-​referentiality may not function as a hermetic seal that wards off indeterminacy during the process of reading; instead, it may hinder closure, producing contradictory statements that cannot be easily resolved or reduced. As Culler summarizes: [S]‌elf-​referentiality does not create a self-​enclosed organic unity where a work accounts for itself or becomes the thing that it describes but rather produces paradoxical relations between inside and outside and brings out the impossibility for a discourse to account for itself. A work’s self-​ descriptions do not produce closure or self-​possession but an impossible and therefore open-​ended process of self-​framing. (1985, 52) Although the poet informs us that love has lied, it is impossible to conclusively determine whether love had been true by revealing to the poet the deception and, hence, whether the two modal shifts to C major connote deception or truth.

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  73 The possibility that the poet’s self-​referential assertion(s) may resist closure may relatedly call into question whether text-​music analysis and analytical discourse in general can ever fully describe the musical works that it seeks to engage. The way in which an analysis frames a work can generate a persuasive and powerful reading, though will likely miss something that seems imperative to such an attempt to know the work in question, preventing the discourse from ever achieving closure (Culler 2007, 205). Readers of this essay, for instance, will likely have already identified significant moments in the poem and text-​setting that the current discussion overlooks or deems peripheral. What relationship, then, might analytical discourse have to a musical work, if it can neither be shown to be true or false? Josef von Spaun’s reflections on Schubert’s songs in his brief biography on the composer may serve as a guide: Every one of his song compositions is in reality a poem on the poem he set to music; and not only for sentiment, which is doubtless at home in song, but for all the magic of fancy, for its unearthly charm and its nocturnal terrors, did he know how to find the most proper viewpoint, indeed even for high seriousness of thought had he a language. (Deutsch 1947, 875) If a Schubert song may be regarded as a poem on a poem,33 so, too, might our discourses on nineteenth-​century composers’ settings of lyric poems be conceived as poems on composers’ poems on poems that they set to music—​ discourses that similarly aim to find the most proper viewpoint in an effort to persuade, move, and innovate (Culler 2015, 130). To this end, we might rethink the very notion of closure that limits the potential freedom and play among the possible connections that could arise through the act of reading/​singing aloud, performing, analyzing, and listening. We might imagine instead, as Schubert may have in his setting of Platen’s “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” how the sounds and visual image patterns capriciously comingle in an unrestrained, magical fantasy. Notes * I would like to offer my sincere thanks to Bryan Parkhurst, Jeffrey Swinkin, and the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts; and to Kevin Korsyn, for his support and mentorship through the years. From his counterpoint, tonal composition, and special topics courses, where I had the opportunity to witness his incredible musicianship and exceptional intellect, to his generous feedback on a number of research projects, Kevin has greatly influenced the ways in which I think about and engage with music. I will be forever grateful for such invaluable gifts. 1 Christensen (2001) similarly states: Other potent influences on music analysis (particularly in the 1960s) were developments in literary theory and specifically the movements of “New Criticism”

74  René Rusch and structuralism, by which texts were analysed as discrete and autonomous objects standing apart from questions of historical origin or authorial intention. Although this approach to music analysis may not directly engage with the historical, the approach itself can be historicized. On music as an autonomous object, see especially Butterfield 2002; and on unity as a privileged aesthetic with respect to music analysis, see especially Kerman 1980, Street 1989, Morgan 2003, the responses to Morgan 2003, (Chua 2004; Cross 2004; Dubiel 2004; Korsyn 2004; Kramer 2004), Korsyn 1991, 1993, 2001, 2003, and Rusch 2011. 2 Music analyses of songs often refer to the speaker as a fictional persona or narrator, two designations that may be viewed as remnants of the New Criticism. Throughout my discussion, I will refer to the speaker as the poet. On this distinction, see Culler 2015, which argues that “fiction is not the general mode of being of lyric” (127). 3 The “well-​wrought urn” refers to Cleanth Brook’s (1947) monograph of the same name and his reading of John Donne’s poem “The Canonization.” 4 For further discussion on the topic of self-​referentiality in lyric poetry as it relates to the New Criticism, see especially Culler 1985, 51–​52, and Culler 2007, 200–​205. 5 On privileged contexts, see Korsyn 2001, 2003. 6 Drawing from Dürr (1975, xvii), Muxfeldt (1996, 481; 2012, 162) suggests that Platen shared the prepublished manuscript with Schubert before the published version appeared in Vermischte Schriften. The published version contains revisions, which I will address in section 2.2. 7 The songs within the four collections are “Auf der Donau,” “Der Schiffer,” and “Wie Ulfru fischt” (formally op. 21, nos. 1–​3); “Der Zwerg” and “Wehmut” (formally op. 22, nos. 1–​2); “Die Liebe hat gelogen,” “Selige Welt,” “Schwanengesang,” and “Schatzgräbers Begehr” (formally op. 23, nos. 1–​4); and “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus” and “Schlummerlied” (“Schlaflied” in the manuscript) (formally op. 24, nos. 1–​2). Deutsch (1947, 355) suggests that the critic may have been G. W. Fink. 8 See, for instance, the 1826 review of Schubert’s Sonata in A minor, D. 845 (op. 42): “Here, on the contrary, a composition for once bears the name of Sonata, though it was fantasy, quite evidently, which had the largest and most decisive share in it” (Deutsch 1947, 512–​15; quote appears on p. 512); and the 1827 review of four poems by Rückert and Platen (“Du liebst mich nicht,” “Das sie hier gewesen,” “Du bist die Ruh,” and “Lachen und Weinen,” formally op. 59): Herr Schubert is far-​fetched and artificial to a degree—​not in his melody, but in his harmony—​and in particular he modulates so oddly and often so very suddenly towards the remotest regions as no composer on earth has done. (635–​36; quote appears on 636) Although Deutsch notes that these two reviews may have also been penned by G. W. Fink, he later remarks that “[t]‌he reference to the ‘judgment of experts’ [in document 1032] seems to indicate that not all the reviews of Schubert’s works in this periodical were from one and the same pen—​the editor’s (Fink’s)” (734). 9 For more on this topic, see especially Schleuning 1971; Parker 1974; Richards 2001; Mak 2016; Rusch 2016; and Gooley 2018. 10 We might retrospectively hear the A-​minor 6/4 chord as a passing chord within a chromatic voice exchange that prolongs a chromatically altered D-​minor seventh-​ chord of C major (labeled “enharmonic version” below):

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  75

Example 2.11 Diatonic, Chromatic, and Enharmonic Versions This example also shows the relationship between this progression and its potential diatonic counterpart (“diatonic version”). The harmonic minor sixth (F–​D-​natural) may be replaced by an augmented sixth (F–​D#) (“chromaticized version”), which more readily resolves to a 6/4 chord than a 6/3 chord. Changing D# to Eb preserves the aural and notational identity of the melodic minor third between C and Eb in the accompaniment (mm. 15.3–16.1). 11 For a similar reading of the first modal shift to C major, see Youens 1985, 28. 12 See also Culler 2007, 200–​205. 13 To what extent, for instance, can we determine beyond the boundaries of a music theory whether our linguistic claims about what an instrumental work appears to perform or enact are true or false? On the position that verbal utterances about art can be construed as performative, creative acts that belong to literary discourse, as opposed to objective assertions that lie outside of literary discourse, see especially Hartman 2007 and Culler 2015, 125–​31, as well as notes 19 and 20 in the current chapter. 14 See, for instance, Suurpää 2014. 15 For other discussions of Derrida’s conception of the parergon in relation to music analysis, see especially Littlefield 1996. 16 On self-​referentiality and self-​possession, see again, Culler 2007, 200–​205. 17 For a related perspective on different types of utterances as they relate to music-​ analytical discourse, see especially Parkhurst 2013. Parkhurst proposes that “elemental statements of musical analyses,” which he refers to as “ ‘analytical utterances’, are not best understood as descriptions (either of music or of one’s mental states), but instead as normative claims about how one ought to hear music” (8). 18 The negative relationship between signs may recall Saussure’s (1976) theory of linguistics. The connection between a signifier (the sequence of sounds in gelogen) and its signified (the concept of gelogen) is not absolute but rather part of a relational system of differences. With regard to Platen’s poem, there cannot be deception without truth, nor truth without deception. 19 Epideictic oratory is one of three species of rhetoric outlined in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1984). The other two species are deliberative oratory and judicial oratory. Epideictic oratory (“display rhetoric”) praises or blames and does not require the audience to act (cf. Oravec 1976), whereas deliberative oratory asks an audience to make a decision about a policy that will affect the future and judicial oratory asks an audience

76  René Rusch to decide whether something that occurred in the past was right or wrong (Abrams 2005, 276–​78; see also Cornilliat 2012, 448–​49). Following Barbara Cassin (2011), Culler proposes that “ ‘performance’ is doubtless the best translation of epideixis” (2015, 130). 20 This distinction recalls Austin’s ([1962] 1975) constative and performative utterances, two types of linguistic claims. The former describe reality and can be verified as being either true or false (e.g., “It is snowing”), whereas the latter produce a reality and are unverifiable (e.g., “I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth” [5]‌). On the performative, Austin further clarifies that “[t]he name is derived, of course, from ‘perform’, the usual verb with the noun ‘action’: it indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performing of an action—​it is not normally thought of as just saying something” (6–​7). Austin ([1962] 1975) revises this binarism, proposing instead three different kinds of speech acts: locutionary acts (“producing a given utterance”), illocutionary acts (what one performs “in speaking this utterance”), and perlocutionary acts (acts that seek to further persuade “as a result of the illocutionary act”) (Culler 2015, 129; italics in the original). 21 Related paradoxes that challenge the self-​referentiality of language include irony and the “barber paradox” (“one who shaves all those, and those only, who do not shave themselves”). Schumann’s “Ich grolle nicht” (I do not complain) from Dichterliebe, op. 48, no. 7, offers a familiar example of the former. On the relationship between the barber paradox and self-​referentiality, see Culler 1985, 52; 2007, 201. 22 The physical act of reading a poem aloud and engaging with its speech sounds has also been referred to by M. H. Abrams as “the fourth dimension of a poem,” “one that is almost totally neglected in discussions of poetry” and that reembodies the poem “by emphasizing the palpability of its material medium” (2012, 2–​3). That the orality of lyric poetry has received less attention may be largely due to the printing press. As Northrop Frye summarizes, “although of course lyrics in all ages are addressed to the ear, the rise of fiction and the printing press develops an increasing tendency to address the ear through the eye” (1957, 278). Culler relatedly notes that rhythm is a fundamental aspect of lyric poetry, yet tends to be “largely neglected by criticism, in part because criticism is interpretive and looks for textual features that not only contribute to meaning but may suggest new meanings or hitherto unknown nuances of meaning” (2015, 140). On Abrams’s fourth dimension as it relates to composers’ text settings, see especially Rodgers 2015. 23 In his discussion of Frye’s examples of melos and opsis, Culler susses out two dimensions within each component. Melos may refer to either sound patterns or the representation of voices, and opsis, either the visual construction of the poem or the visual images that the poem produces (2015, 252–​58). Culler suggests that these distinctions can be attributed to two different conceptions of language: “language as material form, letter, or sound” and “language as mode of representation” (256). 24 Youens (1985, 22–​23) also observes this pattern of soft “a”s in “hat,” “las[tet],” and “ach.” 25 What appears to set nineteenth-​century lyric poems apart from their precedents is the turn toward subjectivity—​the ways in which a poem’s ritualistic dimensions (e.g., rhythm, meter, rhyme, repetition, and address) seek to bring into consciousness the subject’s experience of reading the poem aloud (Maclean 1952; Culler 2015).

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  77 26 One might go as far as to suggest that Platen’s poem problematizes the distinction between ergon and parergon by calling into question the ontological status of the iambic rhythm. 27 The suspension figures appear in the Bärenreiter performing edition of the Neue Schubert-​Ausgabe (Dürr 2005, 136). 28 See Tusa 1993; Taruskin 2008, 691–​739; and Rosen 2010, 72–​86. 29 Regarding these two shifts to C major, Youens (1985) reads the second shift as an intensified version of the first one, which reflects the speaker’s acknowledgement that everything is deceptive: “ ‘Love has lied to me (minor), and therefore (major) I now realize that everything, not only love but everything else as well, is a cheat and a deception’ ” (28). In comparison, Stein (1989) associates the C-​major mode with deception and suggests that “the poet’s response to the deceit changes over time” (112). Underlying the view that the poet has accepted the betrayal is the proposal that the A-​minor chord in m. 16 resolves the “recurring conflict between the tonality of C and the major chord built on A in Sections A and B” (116). Proposing a different view of the second shift to C major than that of Stein (1989), Muxfeldt (1996, 2012) remarks that “Schubert’s singer lashes out” during the final outburst “betrogen, ach, betrogen” (1996, 481–​82; 2012, 163). 30 The harmonizations in Examples 2.9c and 2.9d reimagine the song as a small binary theme, using Schubert’s published setting as a point of departure. It seems plausible that the harmonic setting of the second stanza’s first two lines (with or without the textual repetition) would have been different altogether had Schubert composed the song as a small binary theme. Of the two settings, Example 2.9c seems more persuasive. The harmonization of mm. 10–​11 in Example 2.9d seems doubtful, not only because of the jarring shift between Ab minor and Ab major, but also because the word armes is set with a cadential 6/​4 chord, as opposed to a predominant chord (IVnatural or II7/​natural5). The challenge in recomposing this passage appears to lie in convincingly shifting the tonal center from Ab minor to C major within the notated timespan of 1 measure and 1 beat: in the imagined setting, the third of the Ab-​minor chord, Cb (m. 10.1), is chromatically altered to C-​natural (m. 10.3), which is then reinterpreted as ^1 of C minor (mm. 11–​12). 31 Stein (1989) similarly remarks: “the piano postlude ends problematically: the song appears to conclude in the wrong mode as well as on the wrong beat” (128). Cf. Schubert’s treatment of mode in his setting of Heine’s “Ihr Bild,” from Schwanengesang, D. 957, no. 9 (1828). Whereas the first piano postlude (mm. 13–​14) retains the parallel major mode that was introduced in mm. 9–​12 (“Und das geliebte Antlitz/​Heimlich zu leben begann”), the final postlude reestablishes the song’s minor mode (mm. 35–​36) after the poet sings in the major mode (“Und ach, ich kann es nicht glauben /​Dass ich dich verloren hab”). 32 See also Schubart [1806] 1839, which describes C major as “ganz rein. Sein Charakter heißt: Unschuld, Einfalt, Naivetät, Kinder-​sprache” (Completely pure. Its character is innocence, simplicity, naivety, [and] nursery talk) and C minor as “Liebeserklärung, und zugleich Klage der unglücklichen Liebe.—​Jedes Schmachten, Sehnen, Seufzen der liebetrunknen Seele liegt in diesem Tone” (Declaration of love, and at the same time the lament of unrequited love. Every languishing, longing, sighing of the love-​intoxicated soul lies in this key) (381). 33 On this view, see especially Lewin 1986.

78  René Rusch Bibliography Abrams, M. H. 2005. “Rhetoric.” In A Glossary of Literary Terms, 276–​78. 8th edition. With contributions by Geoffrey Galt Harpham. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth. —​—​—​. 2012. “The Fourth Dimension of a Poem.” In The Fourth Dimension of a Poem and Other Essays, 1–​29. Forward by Harold Bloom. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Aristotle. 1984. The Rhetoric and the Poetics of Aristotle. Rhetoric translated by Rhys Roberts. Poetics translated by Ingram Bywater. Introduction by Edward P. J. Corbett. New York: McGraw-​Hill, Inc. Austin, J. L. (1962) 1975. How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955. New York: Oxford University Press. Bribitzer-​Stull, Matthew. 2006. “The Ab–​C–​E Complex: The Origin and Function of Chromatic Major Third Collections in Nineteenth-​Century Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 28, no. 2: 167–​90. Brooks, Cleanth. 1947. The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Butterfield, Matthew. 2002. “The Musical Object Revisited.” Music Analysis 21, no. 3: 327–​80. Cassin, Barbara. 2011. “La performance avant le performative, ou la troisième dimension du langage.” In Genèses de l’acte de parole. Edited by Barbara Cassin and Carlos Levy, 113–​47. Turnhout: Brepols. Christensen, Thomas. 2001. “Musicology: Theoretical and Analytical Method.” In Volume 17 of Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd edition. Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, 488–​533. New York: Oxford University Press. Chua, Daniel K. L. 2004. “Rethinking Unity.” Music Analysis 23, nos. 2/​3: 353–​59. Cone, Edward T. 1982. “Schubert’s Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics.” 19th-​Century Music 5, no. 3: 233–​41. Cornilliat, François. 2012. “Epideictic Poetry.” In The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Edited by Roland Greene, 448–​49. 4th edition. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Cross, Jonathan. 2004. “Introduction.” Music Analysis 23, nos. 2/​3: 333–​35. Culler, Jonathan. 1985. “Changes in the Study of the Lyric.” In Lyric Poetry: Beyond Criticism. Edited by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker, 38–​54. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. —​—​—​. 2007. On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism. 25th Anniversary Edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. —​—​—​. 2015. Theory of the Lyric. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Derrida, Jacques. (1978) 1987. The Truth in Painting. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Deutsch, Otto Erich. 1947. The Schubert Reader: A Life of Franz Schubert in Letters and Documents. Translated by Eric Blom. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. —​—​—​. (1951) 1995. The Schubert Thematic Catalogue. New York: Dover Publications. Dubiel, Joseph. 2004. “What We Really Disagree about: A Reply to Robert P. Morgan.” Music Analysis 23, nos. 2/​3: 373–​85. Dürr, Walther, ed. 1975. Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke. Ser. 4, vol 2a. Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag. —​—​—​. 2005. Schubert Lieder. Volume 1. Urtext of the New Schubert Edition (performing edition). Kassel: Bärenreiter.

Rethinking Self-Referentiality  79 Frye, Northrop. 1957. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. With a Foreword by Harold Bloom. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fifteenth printing with a new Forward in 2000. Gooley, Dana. 2018. Fantasies of Improvisation. New York: Oxford University Press. Hartman, Geoffrey. 2007. Criticism in the Wilderness: The Study of Literature Today. 2nd edition. Forward by Hayden White. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kant, Immanuel. (1790). 1924. Kritik der Urteilskraft. Leipzig: Felix Meiner. Kerman, Joseph. 1980. “How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out.” Critical Inquiry 7, no. 2: 311–​31. Korsyn, Kevin. 1991. “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence.” Music Analysis 10, nos. 1/​2: 3–​72. —​—​—​. 1993. “Brahms Research and Aesthetic Ideology.” Music Analysis 12, no. 1: 89–​103. —​—​—​. 2001. “Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence, and Dialogue.” In Rethinking Music. Edited by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist, 55–​ 72. New York: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2003. Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research. New York: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2004. “The Death of Music Analysis? The Concept of Unity Revisited.” Music Analysis 23, nos. 2/​3: 337–​51. Kramer, Jonathan. 2004. “The Concept of Disunity and Musical Analysis.” Music Analysis 23, nos. 2/​3: 361–​72. Lewin, David. 1986. “Auf dem Flusse: Image and Background in a Schubert Song.” In Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies. Edited by Walter Frisch, 126–​ 52. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Littlefield, Richard. 1996. “The Silence of the Frames.” Music Theory Online 2, no. 1. https://​mto​smt.org/​iss​ues/​mto.96.2.1/​mto.96.2.1.litt​lefi​eld.html Maclean, Norman. 1952. “From Action to Image: Theories of the Lyric in the Eighteenth Century.” In Critics and Criticism Ancient and Modern. Edited by R. S. Crane, 408–​60. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Mak, Su Yin. 2016. “Formal Ambiguity and Generic Reinterpretation in the Late Music.” In Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style. Edited by Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton, 282–​306. New York: Cambridge University Press. Meredith, James Creed. 1911. Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgement: Translated with Seven Introductory Essays, Notes, and Analytical Index. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Morgan, Robert P. 2003. “The Concept of Unity and Music Analysis.” Music Analysis 22, nos. 1/​2: 7–​50. Muxfeldt, Kristina. 1996. “Schubert, Platen, and the Myth of Narcissus.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 49, no. 3: 480–​523 and 525–​27. —​—​—​. 2012. Vanishing Sensibilities. New York: Oxford University Press. Oravec, Christine. 1976. “ ‘Observation’ in Aristotle’s Theory of Epideictic.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 9, no. 3: 162–​74. Parker, Jesse. 1974. “The Clavier Fantasy from Mozart to Liszt.” PhD dissertation, Stanford University. Parkhurst, Bryan J. 2013. “Fraught with Ought: An Outline of an Expressivist Meta-​ Theory.” Music Theory Online 19, no. 3. Richards, Annette. 2001. The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque. New York: Cambridge University Press.

80  René Rusch Rodgers, Stephen. 2015. “The Fourth Dimension of a Song.” Music Theory Spectrum 37, no. 1: 144–​53. Rosen, Charles. 2010. Music and Sentiment. New Haven: Yale University Press. Rusch, René. 2011. “Rethinking Conceptions of Unity: Schubert’s Moment Musical in Ab Major, D. 780 (Op. 94) No. 2.” Music Analysis 30, no. 1: 58–​88. —​—​—​. 2016. “The Four-​Key Exposition? Schubert’s Sonata Forms, the Fantasia, and Questions of Formal Coherence.” Paper presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory, Vancouver, BC, Nov. 4, 2016. Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1976. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-​Hill. New Translation by Roy Harris. London: Duckworth, 1983. Schleuning, Peter. 1971. The Fantasia. Vols. 1 and 2. Translated by A. C. Howie. Cologne: Arno Volk Verlag. Schubart, Christian Friedrich Daniel. (1806) 1839. Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst. Stuttgart: J. Scheible. Speake, Jennifer and Mark LaFlaur. (1999) 2002. “Parergon.” The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English. New York: Oxford University Press. https://​ doi.org/​10.1093/​acref/​978019​9891​573.001.0001 Stein, Deborah. 1989. “Schubert’s ‘Die Liebe hat gelogen’: The Deception of Mode and Mixture.” Journal of Musicological Research 9: 109–​31. Street, Alan. 1989. “Superior Myths, Dogmatic Allegories: The Resistance to Musical Unity.” Music Analysis 8, nos. 1/​2: 77–​123. Suurpää, Lauri. 2014. Death in Winterreise: Musico-​Poetic Associations in Schubert’s Song Cycle. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Taruskin, Richard. 2008. “Chapter 13: C-​minor Moods.” In The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 2, Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 619–​739. New York: Oxford University Press. Tusa, Michael. 1993. “Beethoven’s ‘C-​minor Mood’: Some Thoughts on Structural Implications of Key Choice.” In Beethoven Forum 2. Edited by Christopher Reynolds, Lewis Lockwood, and James Webster, 1–​27. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Youens, Susan. 1985. “Schubert and the Poetry of Graf August von Platen-​ Hallermünde.” The Music Review 46: 19–​34.

3 The E-​flat/​B Complex in Nineteenth-​ Century Music and Its Hermeneutic Dimensions Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

When E-​flat and B interact in salient and sustained fashion in a piece or a multipiece work, we describe that piece or work as hinging on an E-​flat/​B complex. Our task is to assess hermeneutic significance in E-​flat/​B-​oriented works spanning the years 1827–​1869. Schubert’s Die Winterreise and Piano Trio in E-​flat major, Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony, and Faust-​themed operas by Berlioz and Gounod count among our examples. 3.1 Introduction The key of E-​flat major,1 as Anson-​Cartwright (2000) has shown, elicited idiosyncratic chromatic treatment from Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Several of their pieces in that key prominently feature the pitches D♭ and F♯/​G♭. Many others prominently feature C♭/​B♮, especially in development sections, usually in or near the retransition.2 It is this latter chromatic quirk that has caught our attention. In some cases, B♮ is merely an enharmonic stand-​in for C♭, a notational convenience. In other cases, however, it is a distinct entity altogether. Needless to say, the difference between the two pitch-​ classes is considerable. C♭ is diatonically compatible with E-​flat major, since it is 6 ̂ borrowed from the parallel minor and it forms a diatonic semitone with B♭. B♮, on the other hand, is diatonically incompatible with E-​flat, since it forms a chromatic semitone with B♭. Moreover, C♭ is centripetal, tending inward toward 5̂ and thus to the tonal center; B♮ is centrifugal, tending outward from that center. As such, while C♭ might comprise a tonal problem (defined below) in an E-​flat-​major piece, B♮ is bound to comprise a bigger tonal problem. Such a problem, which may beset a single movement or multiple movements within a cyclical work, is typically resolved by the end so that the piece can achieve optimal closure. That resolution, as we shall see, normally involves implicitly or explicitly reframing the recalcitrant B as a conforming C♭. Classical and Romantic composers tend to treat the B problem in E-​flat works rather differently. The former typically present B as a problem pitch, not chord or key center. That is, B might belong to a V (or vii°) of vi but will less DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-6

82  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg likely be a chordal root; likewise, it might function as a leading tone within the key of vi but will less likely be a temporary tonic. The problem is thus fairly contained to begin with. What is more, owing to the comparative tonal conservatism of the style, we know with near certainty that the problem will eventually be expunged and that the home key will handily prevail. In contrast, Romantic composers (from Schubert on) might very well present B in the form of a problem chord (major or minor). Moreover, in Schubert and Brahms especially, the ♯5̂/​♭6̂ generally (beyond the particular case of E-​flat works) often forms the tonic of its own extended key area. A common tactic is to establish ♯5̂ or ♭6̂ as a suspicious pitch and later compose it out on a broad scale.3 What is more, owing to the comparative tonal audacity of the style, we are less certain that the problem will be (entirely) expunged and that the home key will prevail. Considering that tonal pairing and directional tonality are often used,4 tonal unity is not the given it is in the Classical style. When E-​flat and B interact in salient and sustained fashion in a piece or a multipiece work, we describe that piece or work as having or hinging on an E-​flat/​B complex.5 Several axioms about the complex are in order. First, E-​flat and B may each be in either major or minor. Second, E-​flat is a more common tonic than is B. Third, B♮ is treated as distinct from C♭, and both usually appear, interacting in frictional ways. Fourth, C♭ or B typically begins life as a single pitch—​one often marked syntactically and/​or rhetorically, in the manner of Edward T. Cone’s (1982) “promissory note”—​and subsequently forms its own chord and key area, creating a problem needing to be solved. Fifth and finally, E-​flat and B, in their tense entanglement, often perform important emotional and narrative work; the complex serves as a “hermeneutic window,” to borrow Lawrence Kramer’s term (1990, 1–​20). The discerning analyst will extrapolate meaning from the tonal and motivic processes in which the complex plays a leading role, assigning those processes extramusical correlates. To do so, the analyst might take cues from historical context, and, where present, from text, titles, topoi, and other extramusical indices. Our task is to assess such hermeneutic significance in E-​flat/​B-​oriented works spanning the years 1827–​1869. (Example 3.1 enumerates the repertoire we will cover; Appendix A enumerates additional E-​flat/​B pieces, some

Franz Schubert, Die Winterreise, D. 911 (op. 89) (1827) Schubert, Impromptu in E-​flat, D. 899 (op. 90), no. 2 (1827) Schubert, Piano Trio in E-​flat, D. 929 (op. 100) (1827) Hector Berlioz, La damnation de Faust, op. 24 (1846) Franz Liszt, Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-​flat, S. 124 (1849, rev. 1853, 1856) Robert Schumann, Symphony no. 3 in E-​flat, op. 97 (Rhenish) (1850) Charles Gounod, Faust (1859, rev. 1864, 1869) Example 3.1 Works Explored in this Chapter

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  83 post-​1869.) While the breadth of our study precludes exploring any one work in semiotic depth, we will at least expose some general themes to which E-​flat/​ B works seem to have been drawn. This essay will hopefully serve as a useful complement to Anson-​Cartwright’s, both in focusing on nineteenth-​century repertoire (his primary purview is the eighteenth century)6 and in sounding out some semantic implications of such repertoire (his interest in the complex is solely structural).7 What do keys express, and how do they do so? We cannot answer these questions comprehensively here, but we can proffer some preliminary remarks, first about expressive characteristics of keys in isolation, then about those of keys in juxtaposition—​of E-​flat major and B minor in particular, since several of our analytical specimens make that juxtaposition central. The best-​ known English-​ language study of key characteristics is Rita Steblin’s (1996), whose historical compass is the eighteenth-​and early-​ nineteenth centuries. From even a cursory glance at her book, one senses the difficulty such an inquiry poses for hermeneutics: each key over time has garnered a myriad of different, often incommensurate descriptors. For instance, as her Appendix A attests, writers have characterized E-​flat major as cruel, pathetic, serious, plaintive, majestic, dark, aggressive, dignified, gloomy, nocturnal, mellow, and solemn; for Schubart, it represents love and the Holy Trinity (Steblin 1996, 245–​49). B minor, meanwhile, has been deemed by turns melancholic, sweet, savage, artless, submissive to fate, calmly resigned, and ominous (ibid., 295–​98); Beethoven famously dubbed it the “black key” (“schwarze Tonart”).8 With no key can intrinsic qualities be assumed; thus, in parsing a piece, one cannot take any one character as a priori on the basis of key. Rather, one ought to conceive a key as having multiple potential dispositions (some similar, some dissimilar). Which dispositions pertain to a given piece will depend to a high degree upon factors as various as instrumentation, meter, tempo, texture, gestures, themes, topoi, and text (if present). The analyst should also consider how the composer expressively handles a given key from work to work, for certain composers are known to do so with discernible consistency.9 Such an intertextual assessment can shed light on the emotional center of a given work. That said, we are interested less in the affects of any one key than in the emotional and narrative complexity that derives from the tensive interaction between keys and from the role those keys play in an overarching and multifaceted structural argument. Consider the case of E-​flat and B minor. According to Richard Cohn (2004), these keys/​chords stand in a hexatonic-​ pole (HEXPOLE) relation, as shown in Example 3.2. Note that the intermediary transformations are parallel (P)–​Leittonwechselklang (L)–​parallel;10 also note that the chords have roots standing an interval-​class 4 apart, are of opposite qualities, and involve three semitone-​displacements and thus have no common tones.

84  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

Example 3.2 A Hexatonic System (One of Four—​Cohn’s “Western Region”)

Cohn (2004) associates this HEXPOLE relation/​ progression with the Freudian uncanny (Unheimlichkeit). Canvassing cases from Gesualdo to Schoenberg and Richard Strauss, Cohn reveals how the relation tends to accompany textual depictions of distress and death, the morose and the macabre. (He also cites examples in textless instrumental music.) He insists that HEXPOLE depicts these states by virtue not only of convention but also of intrinsic, structural properties.11 At least two scholars have questioned Cohn’s argument, one on extramusical, the other on music-​structural grounds. Frank Hentschel (2016) notes that Cohn’s examples, by and large, do not truly trade in the uncanny, for they have to do with death as a definitive state rather than with ambiguity surrounding death. Indeed, it is not death per se that induces an uncanny sensation but rather uncertainty as to whether an organism is dead or alive.12 (The only example from Cohn’s study that Hentschel deems genuinely uncanny is Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, Act III, Scene 3, where the ring-​clad hand of the slain Siegfried rises menacingly toward Hagen.) Meanwhile, Frank Lehman (2014) contends that the so-​called SLIDE (S) relation (Example 3.3)—​of which Schubert was a devotee, probably the first—​is a better candidate than HEXPOLE for the musical uncanny. His reasoning, in brief, is that the uncanny often hinges on confusion as to whether something is close or distant, familiar or foreign—​it is basically both simultaneously. SLIDE chords are aptly isomorphic with this condition in transforming a chord into a tonally remote one by displacing two semitones, a displacement mitigated by a common tone. In diatonic space, the two chords are utterly distant; in

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  85

Example 3.3 The SLIDE Transformation

voice-​leading space, they are utterly proximate. HEXPOLE chords, by contrast, lack that common-​tone link and thus embody distance more than closeness. SLIDE, then, is inherently a more ambiguous relation with respect to closeness and distance than is HEXPOLE; SLIDE chords are ripe for conveying, in Lehman’s words, “distorted familiarity” (2014, 73). (We will encounter some instances of SLIDE in our examples, though not in uncanny contexts per se.) The upshot of these two critiques, for our purposes, is that E-​flat/​B minor is not to be too closely associated with the uncanny. We will witness a couple of cases in which that tonal relation arguably is uncanny, but several in which its connotations are different. Our essay will traverse the generous hermeneutic expanse that E-​flat/​B, in its various incarnations (including HEXPOLE), can accommodate. This chapter will unfurl as follows: after a brief tutorial on tonal problems, we explore one Classical example, Mozart’s Trio in E-​ flat major, K. 498 (Kegelstatt), which pivots on a problematic B♮. This analysis serves as a kind of baseline from which to explore later, nineteenth-​century works, the better to appreciate fundamental differences between Classical and Romantic treatments of the complex. The Romantic examples we collect in three “clusters”: one devoted to Schubert’s works (Section 3.3), one to symphonic works (3.4), and one to works that treat Goethe’s Faust (3.5). We conclude by reflecting on some general hermeneutic principles that had informed our interpretive escapades. 3.2 Mozart’s E-​Flat/​B Problem A “tonal problem” (Carpenter 1988, 38) is an element—​ latent in the Grundgestalt and, as Schoenberg says, “formulated” in the theme—​of unrest or disequilibrium; it sets in motion a structural trajectory whose goal is to restore equilibrium. In Murray Dineen’s definition, a tonal problem “exists where a feature of a work cannot be immediately accounted for as part of a whole. The problem is solved by explaining it in light of the whole work, as a logically related and thus a coherent part thereof ” (2005, 70). The musical

86  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg Idea (musikalische Gedanke) is nothing less than the posing, intensifying, and resolving of that imbalance. In other words, the musical Idea comprises the problematic aspects of the Grundgestalt and the entire structure by which it is explored and eventually resolved.13 Tonal problems may be more or less acute; forces of unrest lie along a continuum of potency. Less familiar, chromatic relations among tones yield considerable instability, but even familiar, diatonic relations yield some. Schoenberg states, “Every succession of tones produces unrest, conflict, problems. One single tone is not problematic because the ear defines it as a tonic, a point of repose. Every added tone makes this determination questionable.”14 Likewise, a piece may exacerbate a problem, or actualize its latencies, to greater or lesser degrees. Pursuing more troublesome aspects or more remote consequences of a problem will entail pursuing more remote tonal areas and motivic derivations. Yet, these challenges are ultimately all proper, functional parts of a “tonal body” (Carpenter 1988), an integrated organism; they ultimately serve to fortify and enrich the tonal center. Indeed, by Schoenberg’s lights, a tonic unchallenged is one unworthy of the name; it must be tested to prove itself genuinely sovereign. A paradigmatic tonal problem is found in Brahms’s String Quartet in C minor, op. 51, no. 1 (consult the score). The very first chromatic pitch, F♯, is a problem not only because, as 7̂ borrowed from the dominant region (D), it has centrifugal force; it is also expressively demarcated, and in numerous ways. First, it is approached by the wide, dissonant interval of a diminished 7th. Second, its resolution is very brief—​G4 is so fleeting as to barely register. (In other cases, resolution may be entirely absent, as with the “promissory” E♮ of Schubert’s Moment Musical no. 6 in A-​flat [Cone 1982].) Third, F♯ stands out by dint of the following rest, the first in the melody. Finally, it is dissonant not only melodically but harmonically as well: the vii°/​V to which it belongs sits atop a tonic pedal. Note, further, the complications that immediately ensue: at the end of the opening statement, F♯ is respelled as G♭, which, in turn, helps articulate a half cadence in B-​flat minor (m. 9), a fairly foreign region vis-​à-​vis C minor. Near the end of the next phrase, F♯ recurs (mm. 18–​21), now even more rhetorically marked than it was at the beginning, due to being repeated and, in m. 21, to the doubling and long surrounding rests. Schoenberg (1947, 402) hears this pitch as intimating both ♯4̂ in C minor and 5̂ in B minor. Then, however, F♯ rises to G for the half cadence, which prevents B minor from materializing and reaffirms C minor. In addition, G is longer and more metrically stable than it was in m. 2, so the resolution is more secure. For these reasons, the tonal problem is temporarily rectified.15 Mozart’s recurrent B♮ in the Kegelstatt Trio shares much in common with Brahms’s F♯: it is a borrowed degree from a closely related region (7̂ in the submediant [sm]) and it becomes increasingly marked over the course of the primary theme (PT) and transition (TR). It first appears in m. 10 of the first movement (synopsized in Example 3.4), where it arises, unceremoniously, as

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The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  87

Example 3.4 Mozart, Trio in E-​flat, K. 498 (Kegelstatt), Synopsis of Mvt. 116

88  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg the byproduct of a melodic sequence. B♮ is likewise incidental in m. 12, just part of a chromatic fill. In the next measure, which begins a repeat of the continuation/​cadential module, the piano picks up what the clarinet had in the initial continuation; however, it replaces the clarinet’s B♭ with B♮, thus strategically calling attention to the problem pitch. B and C here are also emphasized by means of augmentation (relative to their appearances in mm. 10 and 12). That said, B–​C is only one of several semitonal configurations in mm. 13–​ 15; these measures extract such configurations from the preceding chromatic scale, as if granting motivic significance to notes that were mere cogs in a wheel. (In Example 3.4, compare the bracketed notes in mm. 13–​14 with those in m. 12.) That is to say, B–​C is not yet a motive in its own right; for now, it only instantiates a more general semitone motive. Yet, B–​C ultimately emerges as the most important of these half-​step figures: in the PT-​codetta-​cum-​transition (TR), B–​C now sounds in the bass. That dyad, which had been operative only melodically, now assumes harmonic significance: it tonicizes C minor, which functions first as vi within a cadential loop (mm. 16–​20) and then as a pivot chord leading from T into D (starting in m. 21). B, then, has from humble ornamental origins evolved into part of a motivic dyad, B–​C, which inaugurates a competing tonal region—​sm (en route to D). Over a dozen or so measures, B has inexorably grown into a perceptually salient and problematic entity. If the transition forebodes a problem, it also telegraphs a solution: each time B♮ crops up, B♭ promptly tamps it down. The two pitches do this dance a few times before B♮, as we saw, is given freer rein in mm. 21–​23 and allowed to unleash sm; at the medial caesura (MC) in m. 24, however, B♭ returns within a ii half-​diminished-​7th chord in D. That region, of course, remains in place for ST and thus secures—​for the time being, at least—​the supremacy of B-​flat over its chromatic competitor. In this thematic zone, B♮ recurs mainly in vestigial form, reverting to the role it played in mm. 13–​15. That is, ST is modeled on a module of PT—​mm. 11–​12, to be exact (Klorman 2016, 276–​77). It also takes a cue from mm. 13–​15, partitioning the chromatic scale into discrete dyads. The head of ST (mm. 25–​27) thus in a sense amalgamates mm. 11–​12 and 13–​15. Note that B–​C stands out as the first semitonal dyad of ST. After the unusually proportioned three-​ bar basic idea is repeated, B reassumes harmonic significance as the leading tone of C (m. 31). While the C there (mm. 32–​33) is fleeting, it is then greatly expanded, per the indugio schema,17 in mm. 43–​44. That elongation distinctly recalls mm. 21–​23, right down to the melodic arpeggiation. Then, with essential expositional closure (m. 47), B♮ is suppressed by B♭, just as it was in m. 24. ST, then, not only derives its thematic material from PT but, more interestingly, retraces PT’s thematic dynamics—​the crescendo and diminuendo, as it were, of B’s structural significance. Example 3.5 represents that isomorphism. The development section, in contradistinction to most, does not foment tension. For, Mozart delays dismantling themes, opting initially to restate ST

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  89 wholesale in the SD region.18 That A-​flat ultimately functions as VI within sm, B’s tonal sanctuary. The music touches on that tonal goal, C minor, fleetingly in m. 63 but overshoots it, landing in the next measure on C minor’s V. The ensuing standing on the dominant of sm is a fairly generic retransitional move, but here it comes across as piece-​specific since motivated by the B on which the movement has been fixating from the start. With no resolution of the G dominant chord in sight, B conspicuously flaps in the wind, unmoored from the tonic that would supply it shelter. (The tenor’s C in m. 65 and comparable measures is no resolution of B; on the contrary, it embellishes and resolves to B.) Indeed, deprived of such C-​minor shelter, B♮ has little choice but to descend directly to B♭ (mm. 70–​72), and the vii°34/​C minor to which B belongs progresses directly to the V7/​E-​flat to which B♭ belongs. That is, the resolution of vii°34 is elided, such that it retrospectively functions as a three-​common-​tone diminished-​7th chord in relation to B♭7 (Example 3.5). Also in retrospect, B♮ turns out to function in effect as C♭, as ♭6̂ in the home key. B, then, is wrested from C minor and returned to E-​flat. Put another way, the upstart chromatic tone defers to the diatonic tone (B♭) it has been trying to supplant.19 The piano’s continuation-​repeat in the recapitulation is telling. In the exposition, this “one more time” module was precipitated by an evaded cadence (m. 12); the module’s PAC then dutifully affirmed the E♭ tonic that had just been skirted. In the recapitulation, conversely, the PAC is achieved straightaway (m. 85) but is then promptly overshot, since I is converted into a V42/​IV. As a consequence, the continuation-​repeat is situated within the subdominant, betraying the influence of the development section, which, as we saw, centers on A-​flat. That choice of key furthers the resolution of the tonal problem, because A-​flat major voids B♮; only a diatonic C♭ appears in m. 87, where it resolves to the 6th of a cadential 64. In other words, the melody is no longer poised to demarcate B♮, as it was back in mm. 13–​14. The new tonal region offers a new focal dyad—​ E♮–​F—​to supplant B♮–​C. E♮–​F then rings in the tonic-​transposed ST, for which reason that dyad continues to betoken tonal resolution.

Example 3.5 Isomorphism between PT/​TR and ST in Exposition of K. 498, Mvt. 1

90  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg B♮ returns in m. 105 as a consequence of de rigueur transposition: F♯–​G in m. 32, a deceptive motion in D, now takes the form of B♮–​C, a deceptive motion in T. The tonal problem thus subtly persists, though ST is on the whole resolutional. What is more, even after quashing B♮ with B♭ in m. 106, Mozart abandons the expected PAC,20 triggering a repetition of the continuation and thus of the B–​C as well (m. 108). Now B is of greater consequence because it is not instantly curbed by its diatonic rival: B♭, 5̂, is deferred by an elongated ii56 (mm. 109–​10). Even after the definitive PAC (at the point of essential structural closure, m. 113), B♮ recurs, though summarily suppressed by B♭. With the chromatic flourishes that conclude the movement, B♮ is neutralized, restored to the decorative milieu from whence it came. In short, despite heroic attempts by the retransition (mm. 71–​72) and recapitulation (mm. 86ff.) to quell the tonal interloper, B♮ has proven itself stubbornly durable. Although it petered out at the very end, all in all it seems insufficiently extinguished. We thus might expect the problem to recur in subsequent movements, as indeed it does in the rondo Finale.21 In the rondo,22 the prodigal dyad does not return until the first couplet. The latter contains two distinct themes (B1 at m. 17 and B2 at m. 36), the second of which is patently based on the A (refrain) theme (just as the first movement’s ST was based on its PT).23 Then a piano-​led display episode at m. 43 expands the cadential portion of the B2 theme, in the process greatly elongating the C-​minor chord (ii/​D) as part of an indugio, as in the first movement. C minor next rears its head in the C couplet, which comes with a reminder of B’s humble chromatic-​scale origins (m. 70). B thus in a sense recedes, and then fades entirely with C minor’s excursion into its relative major (m. 73). Then, the retransition takes a crucial step toward solving the tonal problem, doing explicitly what the retransition of the first movement had done implicitly: it enharmonicizes B♮ as C♭ (mm. 103–​05), thus reconciling the former with the E-​flat key center. The next (D) couplet (m. 116) takes the final and most decisive step toward reconciliation, for it revisits what in the first movement’s recapitulation was a pivotal region of resolution: A-​flat (SD). Here too, it placates tensions by obviating B♮ (the one in m. 118 is incidental, shadowing the upper voice a 3rd below). Indeed, B–​C is elbowed out by E–​F. The latter dyad, while not devoid of tension, has mollifying connotations since, to recall, it was a centerpiece of the first movement’s recapitulation. The soothing of antagonisms is also evident both topically and texturally: witness the pastoral parallel 3rds and also the homophonic and homorhythmic texture (discounting the piano’s bass), which seems to celebrate all three instruments finally having achieved equal standing; to wit, seconds earlier (m. 108), the viola was finally awarded the refrain’s melody after mostly having been denied it throughout the movement.24 Some residual agitation remains, however. In the middle of the rounded binary form that is couplet D, a serene E-​flat gives way to a foreboding A-​flat minor (m. 136), whose first and most prominent melodic pitch is C♭. While C♭,

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  91 in contradistinction to B♮, is allied with T, the minor-​mode switch renders the C♭ a bit unsettling. That effect is short-​lived, however, especially since F♭–​E♭ in the bass of mm. 138–​39, as ♭6̂–​5̂ in A-​flat, reminds C♭ of the tonal function it had had in the previous retransition (mm. 103–​05), that decisive moment in which B was enharmonically disciplined. Sure enough, C♭, as if heeding F♭, returns in m. 159, bearing the function of a conforming ♭6̂ within E-​flat, just in time for the final refrain. The effervescent coda (at m. 176) is awash in conciliatory sentiments: witness its intimations of ‘‘reunions and rescues, reconciliations and marriages, rejoicings and rewards—​ all of the paraphernalia of ultimate celebration wholesaled in the comedy of manners [and] in classical sonata style”—​as Maynard Solomon rhapsodizes about the high-​Classical finale generally (1991, 295). The agogically emphasized B♭s in the piano’s left hand (mm. 180–​84) blissfully advertise the absence of B♮. The latter returns in a parting gesture (mm. 193 ff.) but stripped of its intrusive tendencies, as evident in the pastoral 3rds and the banter between the clarinet/​viola and piano, which graciously exchange musette and brilliant-​style topoi. Mozart’s coda does not wish away B♮ but integrates it, restoring it to the innocuous niche in which it first appeared, even using it to bubbly, life-​affirming effect. Perhaps Mozart is saying that a problem solved is not a problem forgotten; on the contrary, one need be continually cognizant of it, lest it insidiously return and regain control. We will see as much in works by Schubert, to which we now turn. 3.3  The Schubert Cluster We stated at the outset that HEXPOLE chords such as E♭ major and B minor by no means always express the uncanny, but in Die Winterreise we believe they do. More specifically, we contend that “Der Leiermann” effuses the uncanny on the basis of its (original) key of B minor in relation to the E-​flat major of “Die Post,” its other musical features, and its narrative niche within the cycle. Before making our case, however, we must address the question as to whether there can be any question of a tonal connection between “Post” and “Leiermann,” given that they are separated by ten songs. And what of the fact that Schubert transposed “Leiermann” down a whole step for the first edition? Example 3.6 provides a tonal and narrative overview of Part II of the cycle. Clearly, E-​flat is not composed out over the duration, so there is no direct harmonic relation between the first and last songs. That is, though E-​ flat is arguably prolonged over the first four songs, Song 17 initiates another prolongational span, one centered around D. (That the majority of Songs 17–​23 are, in Suurpää’s [2014, 171] reading, somewhat peripheral to the main narrative—​hence the parentheses in Example 3.6—​does not necessarily mean that their keys are also peripheral, however convenient that would be for a reading aiming to assert a bond between E-​flat and B minor.)

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92  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

Example 3.6 Tonal and Narrative Scheme of Die Winterreise, Part II26

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  93 There are, however, both narrative and associative (motivic) connections between the first and last songs/​keys. Narratively, Part II, on Suurpää’s (2014) account, is fairly self-​enclosed, in part because it surrounds the theme of death (Part I surrounds that of lost love).25 Consequently, it would seem reasonable to attribute significance to, and perhaps some relationship between, the keys by which Part II is bookended. Moreover, as we will discuss, the imagery of “Post” prepares that of “Leiermann.” Associatively, Songs 13 and 24 are intimately wed in their melodies being similarly folkish and transparently triadic. Moreover, a connection between E-​flat and pitch class B/​C♭ is established in “Die Hoffnung,” the second song in E-​flat. It begins with a C♭, which then recurrently crops up, sometimes in the guise of B♮ (serving initially as 7̂ in C minor, later as ♯5̂ in E-​flat). E-​flat and B, then, are associated both in being the keys of motivically related songs (13 and 24) and in themselves being motivic (as established in “Hoffnung”). As for transposition, we are inclined to analyze this work according to its original keys, because in them we detect purposive tonal construction.27 For example, Part I starts and ends in the same key, D minor, assuming “Einsamkeit’s” original key. What is more, there are prolongations internal to both parts that are compromised by transposition. For example, in Part I, Songs 8–​10, in their original keys, arpeggiate the structural IV chord that leads to the structural V of Song 11: “Rückblick” is in G minor, “Irrlicht” in B minor, and “Rast” in D minor. When “Rast” is transposed to C minor, per the first edition, a possible consequence is that the IV Stufe is not sustained up to the arrival of V at “Frühlingstraum” and thus the long-​range tonal syntax is somewhat degraded. To be clear, our present concerns are analytical, not performance-​oriented: we do not presume to police what keys performers use; we only aim to find meaning in the tonal structure Schubert originally designed. Having established a tonal link between Songs 13 and 24, we are now in a position to argue for that link (a HEXPOLE one) being uncanny. For that, we need to start with Song 2, “Wetterfahne.” In the second stanza, the protagonist rebukes his younger self, to whom he refers in the third person, for being naïve, for not having taken heed of the titular weather vane that, he now realizes, foreboded inconstant love: “Er hätt’ es eher bemerken sollen,/​des Hauses aufgestecktes Schild,/​so hätt’ er nimmer suchen wollen/​im Haus ein treues Frauenbild” (“He should have noticed sooner/​the emblem set upon the house;/​ then he would never have tried to look/​for faithful womanhood within”). This is the first indication that the hapless antihero is psychically split; he has been so traumatized from being spurned that he has become bifurcated into two personas—​a disillusioned one of the present and a trusting one of the past, the latter of which he represses for fear of ever being so vulnerable again. This bifurcation is even more evident in “Die Post.” Here, the sound of the post horn, which might bring news of the beloved and thus ensure the wanderer’s continued connection to her, causes his heart to flutter. The wanderer becomes preoccupied with his heart’s erratic behavior, and even seems to experience his heart as alien and surreal: “Was hat es, daß es so hoch aufspringt,/​mein Herz?

94  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg … Was drängst du denn so wunderlich,/​mein Herz?” (“Why do you leap so high,/​my heart? … why then do you throb so strangely,/​my heart?”). (Schubert heightens this fixation by adding several iterations of “mein Herz” to Müller’s four.) The wanderer addresses his heart as if it were not part of himself. That is because its excitation bespeaks a trusting, hopeful persona that his conscious mind can no longer admit, a persona from which he had begun to dissociate in “Wetterfahne.” That such repression has been unsuccessful and now assumes a pathological dimension is clear in its manifesting as a physical symptom.28 Such pathology is intensified in the final song. Scholars often construe the hurdy-​gurdy man as an augury of death. To us, he is instead (or in addition) a projection of the protagonist’s repressed self. The street musician cuts a frail, vulnerable figure (his fingers are numb, he walks barefoot on the ice), and also a naive, nescient one, given his music’s folkish simplicity (see below). The man thus readily resonates with the wanderer, for he symbolizes the credulous persona that the wanderer had repressed for self-​protection. Now the repressed returns in disturbing form, personifying aspects that the wanderer had ejected from his own psyche and that he can no longer bear to admit as belonging to himself. The wanderer feels the chills of the uncanny because in this man he unconsciously detects aspects of himself, yet aspects he had dismissed and no longer recognizes as belonging to himself. Like his heart in “Post,” the Leiermann is eerily part of him and not, organic and inorganic at the same time. How does the Leiermann’s music obfuscate the boundary between the organic and inorganic? On the one hand, the perfect 5ths on which he harps are redolent of the overtone series, and the quasi-​horn 5ths in m. 28 symbolize pastoral life. On the other hand, the music is somewhat mechanistic, eking out a melody that, like the hurdy-​gurdy itself, spins its wheels: the Urmotiv (mm. 3–​4) is subject to static variation rather than continuous transformation. The wanderer’s melody mirrors the hurdy-​gurdy music in exploiting natural, triadic material but doing so in a mechanically repetitive rather than organically developmental way. Moreover, his melody is akin to a disjointed mechanism in that its weak syllables fall on registrally accented notes and its metric groupings are mercurial and often dissonant against the foursquare drone.29 Finally, the repetitiveness in and of itself smacks of the uncanny, for, as Freud observes, involuntary-​seeming, circular repetition “surrounds with an uncanny atmosphere what would otherwise be innocent enough [to wit, this song’s rudimentary material] and forces upon us the idea of something fateful and inescapable where otherwise we should have spoken of ‘chance’ only” (1919, 43). To be sure, these musically uncanny elements would be present regardless of key. Still, the B minor, understood in relation to the earlier E-​flat major, certainly consolidates the uncanny—​as a visual symbol if not a conscious aural impression.30 Op. 90, Charles Fisk notes, was “Schubert’s first instrumental work composed under the spell of Winterreise” (2001, 140). The first Impromptu (op. 90, no. 1) is reminiscent of “Gute Nacht” in its walking tempo, repeated-​note motto, and

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  95 march-​like dotted figures. The second Impromptu, meanwhile, is somewhat reminiscent of “Leiermann” (in the context of Winterreise as a whole) in its juxtaposition of E-​flat major/​minor and B minor, especially in its coda. This Impromptu is a large ternary form in E-​flat, although the piece considerably taxes the authority of that key. What does so, in particular, is B/​C♭, which rises above the level of a soluble tonal problem of the kind we diagnosed in Kegelstatt. The two pieces begin similarly: in each, the pitch class comes on the scene inauspiciously, as the by-​product of a sequence—​a melodic one in the Mozart, a harmonic one in the Schubert (see the descending-​5th sequence starting in m. 25). Then, also as in the Mozart (m. 13), the pitch class acquires a bit more identity (Schubert’s mm. 37 and 39) before staking out tonal turf. It is here that the pieces sharply diverge: Mozart’s key is a fairly tame C minor (before giving way to the dominant, B-​flat); Schubert’s is a much more feral B minor, which houses the contrasting middle section. That is, Mozart adapts B as the leading tone of a closely related key; Schubert adapts it as the tonic of its own far-​flung key. One might take that B minor, especially since it follows a dominant-​ functioning G♭-​major triad, to be an enharmonically respelled C-​flat minor and thus diatonic to E-​flat. However, we take the E-​flat/​B minor relation to be primarily hexatonic, a stance not contravened by B being tonicized; Schubert often diatonically delineates a chord locally though he places it in a non-​ diatonic relationship more globally.31 Thus, on our reading, this piece knows no one all-​encompassing Ursatz; rather, each main section has its own autonomous Ursatz. These diatonic chunks are at once separated and, in a sense, loosely connected by hexatonic maneuvers, as Example 3.7 illustrates.32 Schubert telegraphs such tonal parataxis (separation, juxtaposition) in the way he regains the home-​key dominant in the B section (Example 3.8). Recall that Mozart’s first-​movement retransition had co-​opted B♮ by a common-​tone diminished-​7th chord, such that B♮ retrospectively functioned as an obedient C♭ (revisit Example 3.4, mm. 69–​72). Schubert’s retransition allows for no such diatonic smoothing-​ over: B minor proceeds directly—​ sans diatonic connective—​to a i64 in the home key, via P-​L (the i passes between B minor and ii half-​diminished 7th). So, the piece returns to E-​flat at the A2 section without having sufficiently neutralized B minor; Schubert mainly sweeps it under the rug. (B’s conversion to C♭ in m. 163 is after the fact.) Hence, it is hardly surprising when B minor rears its head in the coda (see the score). In this coup de grace, Schubert brings back the interior theme complete with its B-​minor key. Keep in mind, it is hardly unusual for a coda to repeat B-​section material,33 but usually the coda transposes it to the home key. That B minor persists so near the end, by which point tonal conflicts are normally resolved, attests to its recalcitrance toward E-​flat. In fact, the latter now takes the form of E-​flat minor, which spars with B minor with no synthesis in sight. E-​flat minor ends the piece, in a maneuver one might term a “reverse Picardy 3rd.”34 The E-​flat tonic is thus equivocal, as if allowed the final say but only at the expense of modally mirroring its B-​minor nemesis; the

96  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

Example 3.7 Tonal Structure of Schubert, Impromptu in E-​flat, op. 90, no. 2

Example 3.8 Schubert, op. 90, no. 2, mm. 157–​65

latter’s 5̂ , F♯, has insinuated itself into E-​flat minor in the form of G♭. Hence, in diametric opposition to Mozart’s treatment of the problem, Schubert does not assimilate B (minor) to E-​flat; on the contrary, E-​flat is disfigured by B.35 From a hermeneutic standpoint, the Impromptu’s opening is demure and blithely unselfconscious, repeating its arabesque-​like cascades with pleasurable

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  97 abandon. It is etude-​like only in its perpetuum mobile, not in any real physical ferocity. Still, maybe behind that unabashed repetition of the material lurks anxiety about losing the innocence expressed in the material. That anxiety briefly rises to the surface with E-​flat minor in m. 25. Then, the interior theme makes good on that fear: in its minor mode and rhythmic and melodic angularity, it replaces the gracious Deutsche Tanz with a danse macabre of sorts. After innocence is recovered in the reprise (A2), it is definitively degraded in the coda, as we have seen. Upon reflection, one wonders whether the A section’s innocence was illusory from the start. That reading is buttressed by hearing the Impromptu against the backdrop of Winterreise. Fisk attests that lost or corrupted innocence in the Impromptu “draws support from the … major-​mode passages in Winterreise, passages whose words deal almost exclusively with illusions, fading memories, and unfulfilled dreams … the overpowered major of the second Impromptu especially calls forth such associations.”36 In other words, in Winterreise, major keys often accompany sweet memories and optimism and minor keys give the lie to those, exposing them as so many delusions. Just so, in the Impromptu, B minor and the E-​flat minor it engenders expose the E-​flat-​major music as deludedly or at least unsustainably sanguine, as Pollyannaish. The analogy with Winterreise might extend even deeper. The Impromptu, viewed through the prism of the song cycle, intimates a guileless protagonist who, as in the cycle, encounters a trauma, a betrayal of trust. The opening reaches an impasse with the B-​minor music, a tonal trauma that is left unresolved at the end of the B section: there, as we saw, B minor is transformed (hexatonically) rather than resolved (diatonically). In A2, the protagonist continues his journey as if nothing had happened, but that is bound to fail, the repressed is bound to return—​hence the B-​minor music at the end. Then, the B-​minor repressed takes the form of E-​flat minor. As with the cycle, an unsatisfactorily repressed element recurs in a distorted guise, one producing an uncanny effect: in Winterreise, the protagonist, in our reading, queasily identifies with the Leiermann, unconsciously sensing that he resonates with a distasteful aspect of the protagonist’s own character, the naivety that he has come to associate with rejection and trauma; in the Impromptu, similarly, the protagonist, the persona implicit in E-​flat major, queasily identifies with E-​flat minor, sensing that it resonates with the B-​minor trauma that he ostensibly left behind. Beyond that, the endings of the two works are quite different: whereas the song and song cycle leave the protagonist in limbo, the piece, since more aggressive, leaves him in a less ambiguous and more active state, one in which he might eventually be able to conquer his demons. Indeed, Fisk posits that the G-​flat-​major key of the next Impromptu (op. 90, no. 3) reflects the E-​flat minor of no. 2 and that its C-​flat (SD) area is a potential “agent of recovery from the E♭-​minor crisis of the E♭-​Major Impromptu’s ending and from the agitated B-​ minor music implicated in that crisis” (2001, 118).

98  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

Example 3.9 (A) Schubert, D. 929/​Mvt. 1, mm. 48–​58; (B) Mvt. 2, mm. 1–​6; (C) Mvt. 4, mm. 279–​85

In Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-​flat, D. 929, we hear special hermeneutic import in two particular features: the interval cycles and the return of the second-​ movement main theme in the Finale. B minor is central to both, and we consider each in turn. Schubert makes short work of agitating an otherwise buoyant dance. Shortly after the heraldic announcement of the tonic, B appears, and in

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  99 its own C-​minor environs (mm. 5–​6) (Kegelstatt, recall, waited 16 whole measures before introducing C minor). B’s prompt diatonicization as C♭ in m. 27 is hardly a normalization, for it clashes with a concurrent B♭ – the C♭ appoggiatura in the piano and the resolving tone B♭ in the cello sound simultaneously. Such ill-​ease with the home key compels the problem pitch to erect its own key—​B minor (m. 48; see Example 3.9a). That B is tonicized does little (as in the Impromptu) to mitigate its essential incongruity with E-​flat. Indeed, these are HEXPOLE chords (see Example 3.10). That key, however, proves to be a house of sand, for it triggers the first of several equal-​interval cycles (ic) in this movement—​here ic4, which takes us from B minor through G major to E-​flat major. These cycles, which are driven by transformational processes, disrupt diatonic processes; they intermittently perforate tonal prolongations. Our graph illustrates such push-​and-​pull between these two different processes.38 B minor triggers another interval cycle in the development section, now ic3. Twice now, B minor has attempted to gain a foothold but was foiled by the cycles it seems fated to catalyze. It is neither a secure denizen of E-​flat nor can it stake out its own territory; it is neither here nor there.39 Interestingly, B also initiates an ascending-​5th pattern—​B (m. 195)—​F♯ (m. 247)—​D♭ (m. 299)—​ each rung of which articulates a large-​scale thematic repetition, a new module (see Example 3.10). As in the exposition, that diatonic span is rendered discontinuous by pockets of non-​diatonicism. The recapitulation (starting m. 385) transposes B minor of ST down a perfect 5th to E minor (m. 434); however, B minor is accorded tonal resolution in the coda (starting m. 571), where ST is reiterated in E-​flat minor (m. 585). Just prior, for good measure, Schubert harps on C♭, cueing us that the ST we are about to hear originated in B minor and that B is now being diatonically disciplined. Granted, B momentarily reappears—​within the ic4 that fuels the E-​flat-​minor ST. However, this is the first such cycle that is complete, that comes full circle: E♭ (m. 585)–​e♭–​C♭–​b–​G–​g–​E♭ (m. 612). Hence, B is now firmly enclosed within E-​flat borders. Schubert’s movement thrives on the interplay between, on the one hand, “first-​practice” tonality and a dramatic model of sonata form, and on the other, “second-​practice” tonality and a lyrical model. For the most part, Schubert does sonata business as usual, coursing through familiar vectors toward familiar cadential goals. En route to those goals, however, Schubert meanders, both with ad infinitum thematic repetitions (especially in the development section) and with the intervallic repetitions (cycles) that adjoin them. Onto this musical bifurcation one might map an extramusical one: the diatonic and dramatic correlate with external phenomena or objective reality, the non-​ diatonic/​transformational and lyrical correlate with internal experience or subjective counter-​reality. The wanderer treks through well-​worn sonata terrain but along the way finds time and space to reflect on that journey.40 B minor, we submit, lies at the interstice between these external and internal realms: in one respect, it is an outlier with respect to the tonic and tends to

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100  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

Example 3.10 Tonal Overview of Schubert, Piano Trio in E-​flat, D. 929, Exposition and Development of Mvt. 137

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  101 invite flights of harmonic and concomitant subjective fantasy; it is a portal into an inner realm. In another sense, it is, in the end, a chess piece within the standard sonata game. For, in the coda, as we have seen, B minor is ultimately subordinated to external, diatonic reality—​B is enharmonicized as C♭ and the B-​centered ST is transposed to E-​flat. Even the final interval cycle to which B belongs (mm. 585–​612) capitulates to the tonic, since it brings E-​flat full circle; subjective fantasy is reined in by objective necessity. Such a maneuver was prepared by the end of the development section, whose final ic3 cycle, mm. 299–​337, goes a step further than had the previous two; it outlines a diminished-​ 7th chord rather than merely a diminished triad—​precisely, it seems, in order to attain the retransitional dominant (see Example 3.10, mm. 299–​337). Here, too, directionless inner contemplation ultimately gives way to goal-​orientation. In the Andante con moto movement (Example 3.9b), the accompanimental chords are vaguely reminiscent of ST’s repeated-​note motive (Example 3.9a). The implicit connection between the two passages is made explicit in the Finale, where the second-​movement theme returns in ST’s key of B minor (Example 3.9c), more on which in a moment. Mm. 45–​47 of the Finale sport C♭s that wrinkle the mainly celebratory music—​a mild disruption, to be sure, but enough to indicate that C♭/​B continues to be an issue. Indeed, although C♭ dutifully descends to B♭ in m. 48, it ascends to C♮ in m. 59, and then B♮ ascends to C in m. 61, showing a centrifugal inclination. That inclination is given freer rein when B migrates to the key of C minor at m. 73; the key, along with the repeated chords and pitches there, summon up the Andante con moto. That inclination is given still freer rein with the eventual turn to B minor at m. 231. B minor is not harmonically prepared in the least; it simply SLIDEs out of B-​flat. The minor mode casts a pall over the otherwise ebullient music. Soon thereafter, B minor hosts the Andante con moto theme. B minor here exudes a quality of stability and self-​completeness, in sharp contrast to its instability and transience in the first movement. It appears whole for two reasons: (a) since B minor has what was the C-​minor Andante theme, it is now more composed, less susceptible to modulation, than it was in the first movement; (b) more broadly, B minor partakes of synthesis, for this passage integrates the secondary key-​center of the first movement and the opening theme of the second movement. This apotheosis of B minor, however, eventually recedes. The toccata-​ like couplet returns with a vengeance in E-​flat minor (m. 388). The music is now more menacing, as the repeated-​note figures have been wrested from the melody and given to the piano’s thick, accent-​studded chords. Is E-​flat minor a reflection of B minor, with which it is starkly juxtaposed in m. 410? In other words, has the E-​flat tonic been disfigured by its tonal nemesis, as in op. 90, no. 2? No, at least not permanently, because E-​flat minor does not persist—​ no reverse Picardy here. E-​flat minor does return, however, near the very end (m. 695), where the Andante theme makes a final appearance. That statement straddles both tonic minor and major, the latter having the final say. Hence, the

102  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg B-​minor recall is transposed to the tonic, adopting not just its scale degree but its major mode as well. The return of the Andante theme in the Finale is a marked event, in part because Schubert rarely used such manifest cyclicity; more typically, he opted for subtle, subthematic complexes of gestural,41 motivic, and tonal associations across movements (and songs). Indeed, the Trio and also the Piano Sonata in A, D. 959, says Fisk, are “patently cyclic” to a degree that has “no other explicit antecedents in Schubert’s instrumental music” (2001, 3), save for the Wanderer Fantasy, D. 760 (1822). Fisk observes that it was only after composing Winterreise that Schubert felt compelled to return to explicit allusiveness, à la the Wanderer: “It therefore seems possible that his work on these songs may have … reawakened a cyclical impulse earlier revealed most explicitly in the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, leading to a proliferation of new cyclical experiments” (ibid.). Given the evident influence of the song cycle on the Trio, and the prominent uncanniness in the B-​minor “Leiermann,” one might be tempted to read the B minor/​E-​flat juxtaposition in the Trio as similarly uncanny. Fisk gestures in this direction by saying, “the mysterious B-​minor beginning of the [first movement’s] second group can be taken … to individuate a Fremdling protagonist” (2001, 277). Then again, several other motifs populate the song cycle—​ perhaps most significantly, memory and nostalgia. Fisk attests to the relevance of those tropes: the theme of the C-​minor Andante con moto is steeped in the aura of Winterreise … and when this Winterreise-​haunted theme returns in the Finale, it also subliminally evokes the memory of the B-​minor theme from the first movement by returning in that key. (ibid.) The reminiscence in the Finale is thus threefold: it is explicitly of the second movement and subliminally of the first movement and of Winterreise. If, however, the return is a memory of B minor, it is not a memory of something fully existent prior to its reflection. For, as we discussed, B minor is rather sketchy in the first movement: in ST, no sooner does B minor appear than it is absorbed by an interval cycle; the development follows suit. B never finds its own terra firma. It is not until the Finale’s recollection that B comes into its own, if impermanently. The reflection is partly what gives B minor greater substance and solidity. The recollection is thus at the same time a revelation; it is at once illusory and very real. To that extent, Schubert may be evoking a special sort of memory—​ a dream. Dreams are quite real, in several senses. First, as Freud (1900) maintained, dreams are catalyzed by thoughts, feelings, and wishes stemming from waking life—​the so-​called latent dream-​thoughts underlying the manifest dream, latencies that dream-​ analysis helps unearth. Second, some dreams are so lucid as to virtually form their own alternate reality, just as

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  103 Schubert’s B minor and its hexatonic universe form a kind of alternate reality to E-​flat major and its diatonic universe. Finally, the dream-​cum-​analysis, in disinterring repressions, can affect our waking life; dreams-​as-​analyzed can lead to the modification of attitudes and behaviors. We so often live out the consequences of our dreams, the realizations culled from them. The B-​ minor mirage becomes so real at the recall that, indeed, it temporarily spills over into waking life in the form of E-​flat minor. In short, dreams reflect (obliquely, via dreamwork transformations) waking psychical phenomena, conjure vivid worlds unto themselves, and influence our ongoing lives. They reflect, simulate, and affect waking life. Dreams are in this sense very real. Schubert, to our ears, conveys this insight in tones, most fundamentally by the B-​minor recall both being a simulacrum of the past and bringing that past into a fuller reality. What Charles Rosen says of the sustained piano chords in Schumann’s “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet” (Dichterliebe, op. 48) is equally true here: “illusion and memory act with a power that makes them indistinguishable from reality” (1995, 207).42 Admittedly, memory is only one of several tropes that might be apposite to the Trio’s recall. Benedict Taylor posits another: “But need this [recall] be a memory? … Just as germane … might be the idea of fatalistic return, the folksong as something external to the musical subject’s consciousness, even time as being something cyclical” (2016, 155). The difference between our reading and Taylor’s hinges, in part, on whether one views the recall as emanating from the subject—​as unfolding from within the lyric “I”—​or as residing outside the subject. Instrumental music is by nature mute on this distinction, seldom offering an objective basis on which to decide. 3.4  The Symphonic Cluster Schumann began to compose his Symphony no. 3 in E-​flat, op. 97 (1850) during his second foray to Cologne. His biographer Wilhelm Josef von Wasielewski dubbed it “Rhenish” since Cologne sits on the Rhine. Schumann informed him that the fourth movement was inspired by the promotion of Cologne’s archbishop, Johannes von Geißel, to Cardinal and, indeed, Schumann originally titled that movement, “In the character of an accompaniment to a solemn ceremony (“Im Charakter der Begleitung einer feierlichen Zeremonie”—​of which, in the end, only the “Feierlich” designation remained).43 That movement expresses religiosity in its Renaissance-​like stile antico imitation, strict govern3 4 ance of dissonance, and half-​note tactus (2 and 2 ). Larry Todd also reminds us that the melodic incipit (perfect 4th–​diminished 4th–​perfect 4th) is redolent of certain fugal subjects of Bach, and that Schumann used it, in inversion, in the Agnus Dei of his Mass (Todd 1994, 99). The trope of the exalted, however, is counterposed in other movements by that of the pastoral, as evident, for instance, in the quaintly diatonic theme of the second movement. This pastoral strain is arguably völkisch at root: Prussia had acquired Rhineland in 1815, thus securing a natural border against the

104  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg French; the Rhine thus came to symbolize the unification of Germany. Another patriotic wave washed over German-​speaking lands in 1840, in response to France threatening to seize part of the Rhine.44 For Schumann, then, the Rhine was a geographical locus at which the venerable and pastoral, religious and humanist meet, and the Rhenish mirrors both by turns. In fact, as we shall argue, it gestures toward reconciling this (ostensible) antinomy. We shall also argue that it reconciles the antinomy of past and future, of memory and teleology. The piece, in its very genesis, is steeped in memory. It was clearly composed in the shadow of Beethoven’s Eroica, also in E-​flat.45 3 Both first movements are in 4 ; both begin with triadic, heraldic themes; and both anticipate the onset of their respective recapitulations with horn fanfares hovering over a dominant. (Beethoven’s occurs directly before the onset, Schumann’s further back, at m. 367.) Schumann also evokes the Eroica in less obvious ways. His first movement, in particular, spends considerable time in the G-​minor mediant, a somewhat atypical tonal station in a major-​key piece.46 Such a G-​minor presence conjures up the Eroica both directly and indirectly. Directly, in that the Eroica famously thematizes that key, in the first instance by touching on its cadential 64 in m. 9 and then instantly resorbing it into the home key via V56.47 Indirectly, in that the Rhenish might well allude to Schumann’s earlier unfinished G-​minor Symphony, which itself alludes to the Eroica.48 As Daverio (1997, 99–​100) details, the first movements of the G minor and Eroica Symphonies share triadic opening themes, a striking turn to a diminished-​7th chord early on, and themes that are more dissoluble motivic complexes than monolithic melodic entities. The Rhenish thus memorializes the Eroica both directly and through the prism of Schumann’s earlier Eroica-​esque confection. This intertextual web arouses the suspicion that the Rhenish may have more than a little to do with memory (the idea or, better, quality of it). Then there is Schumann’s own fascination with the trope of memory, as expressed, for example, in his review of Schubert’s Impromptus, D. 935 (op. 142) in the December 14, 1838 issue of Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. In it, he describes the piece as “one more beautiful memory [Erinnerung] of Schubert.” Daverio construes this phrase as referring to the representation of memory within Schubert’s work—​the memory of the sonata as a multimovement genre and as a single-​movement form. Schumann fancies the first, second, and fourth Impromptus a relic of the complete multimovement genre: no. 1 approximates a first-​movement sonata form, no. 2 a second movement, and no. 4 a Finale. The first “movement was conceived in an hour of suffering, as if musing on the past” (Schumann 1838, 192–​93). It looks back to a lost whole, so to speak, presumably in lacking a development section and in following PT, TR, and ST with an episodic closing section, which Daverio characterizes as a “dialogue without words,” one “difficult to square with the conventional paradigm” of sonata form (2000, 608). The Rhenish evinces a past-​oriented, Schubertian sensibility not just in its genesis but in its particulars as well. The last two movements rehash the key

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  105 of B major, which arises initially in the first movement. Yet, such rehashing is in the service of a discernible telos. In demonstrating that, we will also demonstrate that Schumann’s past-​orientation is not only compatible with but, indeed, at one with his goal-​orientation—​similar to how Schubert’s Trio, in our interpretation, fuses past and present.49 The exposition of the first movement (follow Example 3.11) serves up a primary theme that, at the start, is as tonally consonant (diatonic) as it is metrically dissonant (replete with hemiolas); the theme in its exuberance catapults over the B♭5 Kopfton to C6 by means of a perfect 4th (m. 3)—​an inversion of that which opens the piece. As if to temper such exuberance, the bass steps down in lament-​like fashion; in mm. 7–​8 the melody also becomes more sober, desisting from its hemiolic throbbing. Also, while fragmenting the 4th-​motive, it augments it (m. 11), in the process brushing against none other than C♭. But then the melody reclaims its jubilance by regaining the C6 neighbor (m. 15), nipping C♭ in the bud (not liking what it portends). The C is additionally affirmed in being slightly enlarged relative to mm. 3–​4. In mm. 16–​17, the bass climbs a 4th, thus affording an otherwise generic cadence motivic specificity. As the theme restarts, we expect a consequent phrase to what we now assume was a grand antecedent, but it soon veers off into another thematic idea—​one that is largely contrasting but also, on close inspection, flecked with motivic 4ths. (Are we now in the midst of a transition, since the harmony is sequential and the tonality unstable?) The C reencountered in mm. 23 and 31 is no neighbor to B♭, as it was in its melodic incarnation; instead, it ascends to D in the service of tonicizing G minor. Yet, no sooner is G minor broached in m. 27 than an E♭ chord appears (m. 29), where it serves as a problematic (♭)VI in the local key. (One might imagine that the tonic chord/​key has, for whatever reason, temporarily taken on the identity of its nemesis.) The chord is problematic in that, especially since it is tonicized, the listener readily relates it to the E-​flat home key just (ostensibly) left behind. Note, the E♭ chords of the tonic and mediant sections relate motivically or associatively, not prolongationally—​the E-​flat chords nested within the mediant key are not iterations of the tonic Stufe (Smith 2011). Still, such paradigmatic cross-​ reference obscures G’s tonicity (if mildly). E♭’s problematic nature is advertised in mm. 33–​34, where E♭5, as the 9th of a V9 chord, dissonates irritably against the bass’s D. When the opening phrase and theme return at m. 57, we realize that mm. 21–​56, which we initially presumed a consequent (due to the thematic repetition), then a transition (due to the tonal flux), turn out to form a contrasting middle section within the small ternary that is PT. When that contrasting material returns at m. 77, it makes good on its former transitional leanings, but now it departs from a C-​minor rather than G-​minor triad. That new trailhead puts us on a path clear of E-​flat triads, which previously attenuated G by associating with tonic. E-​flat’s relenting is confirmed at m. 84, where

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Example 3.11 Analytical Sketch of Schumann, Symphony no. 3 in E-​flat, op. 97 (Rhenish), Mvt. 1

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The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  107

Example 3.11  (Continued)

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Example 3.12 Tonal Overview of Schumann, op. 97

an E♭ bass supports a German augmented-​6th rather than a consonant triad; E-​flat thus no longer consorts with the tonic Stufe and competes with G for tonicity.50 The motivic 4th is compressed in mm. 87–​94 to a 3rd, from which it is regenerated for the start of ST. The closing gesture of the compound basic idea (CBI)—​D–​A–​B♭–​G—​plants a seed for Feierlich’s incipit, which quasi-​inverts it. (One can locate an even earlier seed in m. 25, as disclosed in Example 3.14.) These two passages share an air of discontent: witness CBI’s sighs of resignation, the pangs of the (♭)6̂–​5̂ motive, and also the tonal tentativeness—​the CBI is built on an auxiliary cadence (in Schenkerian parlance). And even when the (local) tonic belatedly appears (at m. 97), it does not truly resolve the plaintive dominant but is more subposed beneath it—​V persists in the upper voices. Put differently, the G in the bass of mm. 97–​100 is a mere anticipation of its genuine arrival in mm. 101–​02. Such intransigence of the dominant will prove to be a main structural conceit of this movement.51 Even as the music starts to wend its way into V (B-​flat) with V/​V at m. 135, G minor appears, tonicized (mm. 151–​52). Recall that when G minor was first trying to secure a foothold (starting at m. 27), E-​flat intruded, its association with the previous E-​flat Stufe blurring tonal boundaries. Just so, G minor in m. 152 interferes with B-​flat’s foothold, and by the same associative shenanigans. In both cases, the submediant-​relation is the problem. Note, E♭ in the context of G minor is the ♭-​submediant, while G minor in the context of B-​flat is the ♮-​submediant.52 Yet, Schumann treats them in parallel ways, such that they are comparably problematic.

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  109 At m. 281, midway through the development, the ♭-​submediant is enharmonicized as B major (Example 3.13). B arises as the local (and enharmonic) relative major of the A-​flat minor at m. 273. It returns to the home key via the dominant at m. 303; in retrospect, at least, B7 is a thinly disguised C♭ German augmented-​6th in E-​flat. B major in this section is an enharmonic proxy for ♭SM. The retransitional dominant arrives at m. 365, right before the Eroica-​ evoking horn fanfare. Yet, Schumann departs from that formidable precursor in holding fast to the V through the recapitulation’s onset, such that PT sounds over a cadential 64.53 (The result, for Suurpää 2005, is an undivided Ursatz.) This, according to Suurpää 2005, enables a large-​scale neighbor motion of B♭–​ C–​B♭ across mm. 411–​97 (see Example 3.11); that configuration is plausibly a diatonic corrective to the C♭/​B♮ with which the development had grappled. And perhaps even more important than C♮ correcting C♭ is the sheer emphasis on 5̂. By appearing in the bass at this crucial, recapitulatory juncture, 5̂ is marked for special attention and significance; it invites one to read it as extinguishing its neighbor-​note antagonist, whether in ♮ or ♭ form. If that maneuver rights one imbalance by asserting the primacy of 5̂ over 6̂ , it creates another by delaying the tonic affirmation that is a recapitulation’s raison d’être. Even the appearance of E-​flat within the transposed secondary key of C minor—​as a local relative major that relates associatively to the tonic Stufe—​paradoxically serves to defer the arrival of the true, structural tonic. And though the latter arrives in m. 527, the Kopfton persists (per Suurpää 2005), not descending to 4̂–​3̂ until mm. 534–​35 and to 2̂ – ​1̂ until mm. 570–​71. The sense of resolution is thus considerably dispersed across the entirety of the recapitulation and attenuated for that; consequently, the structural momentum carries over into subsequent movements. The next two movements reside in C and A-​flat, respectively. Do the first three movements, then, describe a descending A♭-​major triad: E♭–​C–​A♭? That reading places undue weight on A-​flat. Moreover, the first movement supplies a clue for parsing those key relations. There, as we have seen, no sooner does one key try to attain terra firma than the previous key intrudes as the local submediant: over the three-​ key exposition, E-​ flat insinuates itself into G minor as a ♭-​submediant, G minor into B-​flat as a ♮-​submediant. Accordingly, we read the second movement’s C as a ♮-​submediant of the first movement’s E-​flat. On this view, the second movement continues to demote, writ large, the ♭-​submediant (C♭/​B) by its diatonic antipode (C♮), just as happened within the first movement itself (in the recapitulation). Indeed, the second movement wears that function on its sleeve, since its theme sports its own ♮-​submediant (A) (Example 3.12). Tension returns in the third movement, whose A-​flat is the ♭-​submediant in relation to C. That movement also wears that function on its sleeve (if briefly) by highlighting C-​flat major within the context of E-​flat, its dominant key (mm. 11–​13). Such tension bleeds into Feierlich, given its minor mode and the lugubrious syncopations and diminished 4th of the opening theme. In contrast, the coda

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Example 3.13 Three B-​major Themes in op. 97: (A) Mvt. 1: mm. 281–​285; (B) Mvt. 4: mm. 52–​60; (C) Mvt. 5: mm. 130 (pickup)–​37

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  111 features a brilliant fanfare in B major that might have made Wagner (though not exactly a die-​hard Schumannian) swoon. (Example 3.13b examines it.) B is sharply distinct from its submediant sibling. For one, the passage is separated from the tonal mainland by the caesura at m. 52, beat 2; there is not even a pretense here of diatonic transition (no applied dominant, for example, as Schubert is prone to provide). Then again, within the phrase, Schumann takes pains to convert B into C♭, the latter anchoring an Italian augmented-​ 6th chord, which leads smoothly back into E-​flat minor. Hence, if m. 52 leaves the home key with paratactic separation, m. 54 reenters it with syntactic connection. The next phrase, however, is more problematic: B major again arises as a harmonic non sequitur and now, additionally, the home-​key reentry is not as clear-​cut: the passage tonicizes B’s IV, which then retrospectively and enharmonically pivots as E-​flat’s Neapolitan. That maneuver precludes any direct connection between B♮ and B♭ in the bass, and between the keys of B and E-​flat minor; m. 59 breaks up what would have sounded like a German augmented-​6th–​V7 in E-​flat had m. 58 progressed directly to m. 60. Measure 59 delimits a liminal space between the two key centers, a space in which the keys seep into each other and in which neither decorates the other. If only for a moment, B and E-​flat are parallel tonal universes; B is somewhat autonomous vis-​à-​vis E-​flat. What might such tonal autonomy signify? Consider that this tonal incongruity is paired with a topical one: the B-​major pomp and circumstance starkly counters the churchly E-​flat-​minor music. That fanfare might be construed in spiritual terms, either attesting to the grandiloquence of the Cardinal being feted, or, less concretely, signifying some sort of religious realization (the precipitous mediant-​drop in m. 52 certainly has an epiphanic quality). But a contrary interpretation is possible: perhaps the passage by its fanfare signals heroic subjectivity, dauntless individualism in defiance of ecclesiastical conformity, a secular agent seeking independence from religious authority. The Finale’s B-​major fanfare (Example 3.13c) achieves this more fully, for, in contrast with Feierlich, B here does not follow on the heels of E-​flat; it does not even arise in its vicinity—​E-​flat had not been a firm tonic since m. 107, and thereafter the tonal center is in flux. Nor is B straightforwardly resorbed by E-​flat; rather, B’s dominant makes hexatonic contact with E-​flat’s, as shown in the example. Hence, B is now fairly unfettered, unconcerned with how it relates to E-​flat. (Its independence is not permanent, however: first, the B fanfare is restated in the tonic in mm. 150–​53; second, in B’s final appearance, 8 measures from the end, Schumann relegates B♮ to a mere passing tone between B♭ and E♭.54) Indeed, the Finale largely sheds religious connotations from the start. Notice that the severity of Feierlich’s Urmotiv is softened in the Finale (see Example 3.14). Measure 29, for instance, though demonstrably derived from Feierlich’s incipit, divests it of its solemn, churchly features—​the syncopation and diminished 4th. Of course, it is also quicker and staccato and thus more dance-​like and sensuous. Likewise, mm. 104ff. are based on Feierlich’s m. 23 but are more buoyant and bubbly. In the Finale, the church music no longer

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Example 3.14 A Motivic Network across op. 9756

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  113 exerts authority over the heroic music, just as E-​flat, at least for a spell, does not exert authority over B major. But a more nuanced interpretation beckons. Listening to mm. 104–​37 and onward, it is easy to hear the underlying triadic affinity between the transformed church motive and the B-​major fanfare (both captured in the bottom box of Example 3.14) because, given the brisk tempo, they are fairly close together, and they also have similarly outgoing demeanors. The motives’ temporal and affective proximity helps us detect their melodic-​structural similarity. Upon such detection, one might then be inclined to revisit Feierlich and to notice the similar melodic morphology between its E-​flat and B themes (see the left-​hand box). The Finale, in other words, actualizes the latent similarity between those two motives, and, by extension, between their respective secular and sacred registers, and also, by implication, between their respective keys of B major and E-​flat minor. Perhaps, then, a humanist impulse has been latent in that sacred music from the start. Maybe Schumann is saying that the beatific and earth-​bound, the transcendent and tangible (material, corporeal) are not diametrically opposed but, on the contrary, two sides of the same coin. (On the above view, the Rhenish stands in contrast to other works by Schumann that are either more sacred or more secular in the final analysis. An example of the former is Schumann’s Symphony no. 2 in C, op. 61, which, as Daverio conceives it, ultimately affirms the divine, its affective trajectory leading from the secular to the sacred [Daverio 1997, 320; also see Newcomb 1984a, 240–​47]. An example of the latter is Schumann’s Liederkreis, op. 39. As Taylor explains, “For the Roman Catholic Eichendorff, it is only in religion that [one can] find a stable sense of self ” and a sense of peace. “Here Schumann and Eichendorff part company. Schumann’s cycle does not propose religion as a solution, but ends in the personal ecstasy of the promise of romantic love” [2017, 219–​20]. This is borne out by Patrick McCreless’s (1986) contention that Schumann published the songs in a different order from that in which he composed them in order to offer a more optimistic view of love and marriage than did the first version, perhaps on account of his own impending nuptials. This view is most evident in “Auf einer Burg” being the final song in the first version, the incomparably more joyful “Frühlingsnacht” the final song in the final version.) In summary, we have crossed three hermeneutic thresholds: (a) in the first movement, we surmised that B was a tonal problem; (b) in Feierlich, with its ecclesiastical environs and its more paratactic treatment of B, we came to see in B’s quest the progressive emancipation of a secular subject; and (c) the Finale amplified B’s tonal autonomy but, in bringing the Feierlich and fanfare motives into greater proximity, it also intimated reconciliation between the sacred and secular. The problem with which the piece began, then, was not so much expunged as obviated—B was gradually revealed to be significant in its own right. Again, B does eventually succumb to E-​flat, but their brief detente powerfully (if fleetingly) symbolizes the prospect of encountering the mystical in material form.

114  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg As with the recollection in Schubert’s Trio Finale, that in Schumann’s Finale does not look to the past wistfully, as if wanting merely to recapture it in its purity—​as does, for example, the idyllic recall of the opening theme just before the Finale of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in A, op. 101 (see Sisman 2000). Rather, it looks to the past in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of it, to actualize its potentialities. The Finale remembers Feierlich in order to transform it, to illuminate the compatibility of seeming motivic, tonal, and conceptual opposites—​a compatibility that, it turns out, was always there. In the end, then, the Rhenish marries memory and teleology. To that extent, one might offer an alternate narrative for the Rhenish, an historiographical one. Briefly, as Benedict Taylor lucidly explains, cyclicity in the Romantic period arose in part from disillusionment with Enlightenment progress, from world-​weariness attending the aftermath of the French Revolution, with the Terror and the Napoleonic Wars. With these events grew a belief that progress toward a political utopia could never be achieved in a straight line but only by returning to the past—​to the glories of ancient Greece, for example—​and by reforming that past in light of the present, for the sake of a brighter future. Cyclical works, in Taylor’s words, thus “intrinsically demonstrate the presence of the past within the present” (2011, 26) and the need to understand one’s present in light of what led up to it; that understanding, in turn, is something to pin utopian hope to. “A fundamental point of the Romantic conception of cyclicism is that a return to something past may be yet part of an onward, teleological trajectory” (ibid., 40). The early-​to mid-​nineteenth century saw a peculiar sort of musical bifurcation, two antipodal trends. One was toward marked abstraction: the work concept, the metaphysics and Hanslickian formalism subtending it, and the Werktreue notion stemming from it. The other was toward marked materiality: virtuosity

Example 3.15 Liszt, Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-​flat: Formal, Thematic, and Tonal Overview

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  115 and performance for its own sake. No sooner did the ideal of the autonomous musical work emerge than did the ideal of autonomous performance vis-​à-​vis the work. Perhaps it is not so peculiar after all that the work concept would have spawned something resistant to its Platonist pretensions: unmediated, unapologetic physicality. As Jim Samson states, early-​nineteenth-​century pianistic culture was in a special sense a performance culture, in that it was centered on … the act of performance rather more than the object of performance, which was [often] the musical work … the listener would be encouraged to … appreciate a sensuous or brilliant surface … communicated by the performer rather than to search out a form of knowledge embedded … in sound structures by the composer. (2000, 112, our emphases)55 These contrasting but complementary tendencies permeate Liszt’s Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-​flat (1849, revised up to 1856). On the one hand, its “work-​ ness,” for lack of a better term, is bolstered by being symphonic, the symphony (of the late-​eighteenth-​century) being one of the primary genres on which the work concept arose. Its ample and distinctive orchestration, and also evocations of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (in the opening peremptory, caesura-​studded motto), Eroica Symphony (in its key), and Emperor Concerto (in its key and early interjection of the soloist)—​all bespeak a grandeur of compositional conception.57 On the other hand, it exudes autonomous performativity in the piano’s pyrotechnics and also in the piano’s extemporaneous-​sounding flights of figuration that have little to do with thematic through lines (see, for instance, the slargando passages). The unabashed technical and fantasy-​like indulgences point to work-​indifferent immediacy, to materiality unconcerned with relaying compositional ideas.58 Does Liszt’s Concerto find some rapprochement between these two extremes? To answer that question, we must first take stock of how the piece is structured. The concerto, like Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy on which it was likely modeled, features both formal continuity and motivic/​thematic connections across movements. As a result of the transitions leading from the second movement to the third and the third to the fourth, the four movements merge into a single overarching one; as shown in Example 3.15, the Allegro, slow movement, Scherzo-​type movement, and Finale are recast as sections of a single sonata-​ form movement.59 The themes, meanwhile, are interrelated—​ for instance, uneven, march-​like rhythms lie at the heart of both Themes 1 and 3 (more on which later); in addition, several themes are transformed in the Finale. Indeed, Liszt, who coined the term “thematic transformation” (thematische Verwandlung), seems to have correlated it specifically with concluding movements, with rounding-​off responsibilities. By such linear connections (transitions) and thematic associations, the concerto evinces the Goethean organicism that was intellectually paramount at the time. Finally, E-​flat and

116  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg B are integral to the tonal architecture (see the bottom row of Example 3.15); in fact, B replaces the B-​flat dominant as the secondary key, as it were, of the broader sonata structure. The four movements-​in-​one conceit, thematic transformation, and E-​flat/​ B axis collectively create a sui generis structure that, in turn, betrays an individualistic compositional agency in relation to the Beethovenian music that by 1847 had taken on an aura of objectivity and institutional validity (Taruskin 2010a, 287). Thus, even as the Concerto alludes to some paradigmatic works of Beethoven, it deforms their norms, indicating a unique creative voice or compositional niche. In relation to the Classical forms that had become generalized and canonized, Liszt’s Concerto is decidedly particular and novel. Such particularity is arguably performative, since it hinges on self-​referential displays of compositional prowess, especially as regards thematic permutations and the ingenious use of chromaticism. In short, “a composition was a performance for Liszt” (Rosen 1995, 517), and, of the First Concerto in particular, Taruskin insists that virtuosity applies not just to the playing but to the composing as well (2010a, 285). Yet, in other, more specific respects, the Concerto stakes out a meeting ground where performative particularity and work-​oriented generality collide. Consider thematic transformation. From one perspective, it is a performative technique par excellence. Charles Rosen explains that, as a composer, Liszt decked out a theme with different harmonic, metric-​rhythmic, and textural garb, just as he was known, while extemporizing at the piano, to deck out preexisting music with different styles and pianistic idioms. That practice found its way into his compositions most obviously in the trademark paraphrases and opera fantasies, such as Réminiscences de Don Juan, which metamorphose the original material not by developing it but by enveloping it in numerous sonorities and textures, and by subjecting it to ingenious pianistic machinations. In his more abstract works, such as the First Piano Concerto and the Piano Sonata, Liszt’s treatment of themes reflects his paraphrastic treatment of preexisting material; he represents them in various pianistic guises. In all these cases, what is paramount, Rosen insists, is not the content or even quality of the material per se but its pianistic accoutrements. Liszt’s goal was evidently not to unpack that material, to shed light on what it (supposedly) is, but to continually repackage it to show the various ways it could be. In short, thematic transformation is in one sense a performative technique through and through. Yet, if thematic transformation renders composing performative, so, in a way, does it render performativity compositional. In the Concerto, the performance-​ based technique of thematic transformation is pressed into the service of a conventional formal design: four of the six themes are transformed in the Finale precisely to render it recapitulation-​like, to furnish formal closure. Hence, the concerto’s performative particularity is hardly unfettered—​it still answers to external, traditional norms.60 Thematic transformation is where/​how work-​ness and performance intersect. That compositional technique is rooted in performance, and such performativity feeds back into compositional structure.

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  117 If in Liszt’s age work and performance formed a prominent musical binarism, one of the ideal/​real variety, so Lisztian performance encompassed its own similar binarism—​that between inner refined, ethereal, even spiritualized sentiment and external pianistic prowess or coarse physicality. That Liszt was invested in synthesizing these poles has been recently demonstrated by J. Q. Davies (2014). He recounts Liszt’s “makeover” moment—​ Paris, 1832—​where he refashioned his technique, pounding his hands into submission through hours of octaves-​drills. He was aiming, in essence, to render his hands lifeless—​hence his locution, “la main morte” (“the dead hand”)—​so they bent to his will. That is, the main vehicle of execution was no longer the fingers or the entire hand but the wrist and arm that controlled them and, even more, the player’s inclinations and intentions. In pedagogy, as well, Liszt sought to address students in “less digital ways: beyond instruments, scores, their own fingers, and even music … Rather, pupil and teacher would now seek transformative experiences.” At issue was not the student’s manual dexterity or technical prowess as such but her “desires, drives, instincts, intentions, volition” (Davies 2014, 159). Thus, “Liszt began to treat not so much the hands of his students as their souls” (ibid., 172). Also telling is that, in performance, Liszt reportedly routinely stared off into space, as if eyeing the spiritual plane to which his physical exertions gave him access.61 (Of course, his penchant for the transcendental eventually assumed downright devotional form in the taking of Holy Orders.) No passage in the concerto is likely to be more indicative and demanding of “dead hands” than that with which the pianist enters (see the score). The leaps are so daunting that the soloist has little choice but to leave her hands lifeless, at the mercy of the wrist and arm, which ideally throw them around like dead weight,62 and, even more, at the mercy of her sheer will, intention, and determination. In Liszt’s “makeover,” then, Davies locates a locus of musical transcendentalism, where Liszt framed music as metaphysical, which hinged on triumphing over physical challenges and the body itself. Romantic lore came to equate such metaphysics with suppressing “the shameful work of [the] hands”; indeed, it came to deny the very “fact of handedness itself ” (Davies 2014, 159). But, in Liszt’s conception of performance, the somatic was a sine qua non of any music-​expressive or -​philosophical end; the physical was indispensable for accessing the transcendental. Put plainly, the only way beyond the hands was through them. Does the Concerto itself give any indication of such a synthesis between brute physicality and rarefied sensitivity? In our view, it does, albeit temporarily—​ just as the Rhenish’s reconciliation of the comparable secular/​sacred duality was as transient as it was powerful. The opening, in E-​flat, is heroic, even bellicose. Theme 2, a rendezvous between piano and clarinet, is amorous. Such erotic tenderness is more amply explored in the Quasi Adagio, where it comes to be associated with B major. That theme (3), as a variant of the opening motto, exposes its softer underbelly. The first movement’s peroration (un poco marc.) prepares for Theme 3

118  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg both emotionally and tonally: first, it makes the motto less severe—​the motto now tails off into dreamy chromatic cascades. Second, Liszt notates the piano in B, over against the orchestra’s E-​flat. (The piano’s de facto key is D-​sharp major, which Liszt generates by adding accidentals E♯, B♯, F𝄪, and C𝄪 where appropriate.) Such a juxtaposition creates a visual image in the score of a liminal space in which the two keys permeate each other, in which the second movement’s B bleeds out of the first movement’s E-​flat. The liminality is emotional as well: here the tenderhearted, associated with B, seeps into and dissipates the aggressive, associated with E-​flat.63 Hence, while there is no overt transition between the first two movements as there are between the other pairs, there is tonal and emotional preparation. That continuity, along with the motivic commonality between Themes 1 and 3, points to the opposing moods belonging to a single persona or protagonist.64 The Janus-​faced protagonist thus has a malevolent, predatorial side, as signified by the imposing motto, but also a softer, more empathic side, as signified by Theme 3. The story, in other words, is about two kinds of desire, one more oppressive, the other more connective; one is about pursuing the object of one’s affection, the other is about relating to her tenderly, perhaps platonically. The former aspect is consistent with Liszt’s “international reputation for erotic conquest” (Rosen 1995, 539), the latter with his spiritual proclivities. The Allegretto vivace, in its Mendelssohnian mischievousness, conjures up an image of the pursuer disguising himself as part of some ploy to earn the beloved’s favor. Indeed, this theme is a covert variant of Theme 2 (Example 3.16), even as it will itself be (lightly) disguised in the Finale. For good measure, the piano’s opening dresses the triple meter in a duple guise (see the dotted bar lines). Does such elfin impishness suggest a kind of emotional middleground between the extremes of aggression and introspection? Possibly, but more sincere emotional reconciliation—​love that is neither purely external and acquisitional nor internal and ideational—​will have to wait for the Finale. Here the Nocturne-​like Theme 3 returns, transmogrified as a quasi-​march (Example 3.17), which, along the affective continuum, stands midway between

Example 3.16 A Thematic Disguise

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  119

Example 3.17 A Thematic Mediation

the exquisite delicacy of Theme 3 and the belligerence of the motto. What was ruminative and interior is made more active and demonstrable, yet, with its military decorum, exhibiting due restraint. The private, delicate feeling assumes a form that is public without being predatory. The transformed theme effects rapprochement not only between the characters of Themes 1 and 3 but between their musical substance as well: in accelerating the tempo and also in increasing the rhythmic unevenness of Theme 3, it retroactively exposes the latent affinity of that theme to Theme 1 (Example 3.17). Liszt hints that what seemed like starkly opposed aspects of the protagonist’s character are in fact part of an emotional continuum; in other words, the Finale does the protagonist the service of treating him three-​dimensionally, if not for which he might have come across as something of a caricature. It would have been Liszt the commanding, gesticulating pianist; Liszt the beatific, contemplative pianist (see n61); and nothing in between. Thus, the thematic process does seem to entail some synthesis between these dualistic aspects of the protagonist’s (and likely Liszt’s own) constitution. The keys follow suit: in the transposition of B-​major material there is less about B being subordinated to E-​flat than about being reconciled with it. Yet, B later returns, where Liszt makes more a point of liquidating it, excising it in favor of E-​flat. It first reappears with transformed Theme 4 and is the byproduct of a chain of transformations—​most globally, P-​L (Example 3.18). Then it resolves to a cadential 64 in E-​flat, retrospectively functioning as a ♭VI (indeed, as a German augmented-​ 6th, due to the last-​ minute A♮). Hence, though approached hexatonically, B is ultimately diatonicized. When the transformed Theme 3 returns (3aʹ), B major is recast as the dominant of E minor (in which

120  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

Example 3.18 Analytical Graph of Finale (Allegro marziale animato)65

Theme 5 is transformed), a minor Neapolitan in E-​flat. We hear B as relating to the following E rather than to the previous E♭, such that the E♭–​B interval, at least in retrospect, is inoperative or “dead” (to invoke Hugo Riemann’s term). B no longer stands in E-​flat’s direct path. Hence, this passage clears away B so that the structural dominant (the first in the entire work) has a place to land. Liszt affirms the triumph of E-​flat over B with a valedictory statement of the motto that now avoids repeating the D♭ so as to emphatically end on B♭ instead of B♮ (Example 3.18). To the extent that B has been aligned with the protagonist’s more reflective side, his higher sentiments, its annihilation suggests that the protagonist is ultimately unable to nourish and sustain the more noble (platonic, empathic) side of his romantic quest. That his concupiscent side has the last word is evident thematically as well: though the motto at Alla breve is liquidated and lyricized, the home stretch is ablaze with double octaves, including some in treacherous contrary motion. If these mandate dead hands, it is doubtful in this case they summon a spiritual plane or our protagonist’s better angels, the pious plagal gestures at the end notwithstanding. 3.5 The Faust Cluster Here we briefly consider two works that treat Goethe’s Faust: Hector Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust (composed 1845, premiered 1846) and Charles Gounod’s Faust (1859). Whereas Gounod’s work is a full-​ fledged opera, Berlioz’s is, as he termed it, a “légende dramatique.” It is nonetheless similar to an opera in genre and scale and is sometimes performed as one.66 Both works thematize E-​flat and B and in strikingly similar ways. Throughout La Damnation, Berlioz associates B with Mephistopheles’s supernatural power over Marguerite. That association is first forged in Scene 11

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  121 (which is not in Goethe’s original play). Just before, Faust and Mephistopheles had broken into Marguerite’s empty bedroom, where Faust sings of his desire for her. Hearing her approach, they hide behind a curtain. Marguerite enters, underscored by an uneasy, undulating semitone-​motive in C minor. As the recitative begins, her thoughts are inchoate, her declamation halting and fragmentary: “Que l’air est étouffant! J’ai peur comme une enfant! (“The air is stifling! I have the fear of a child!”) Where Faust had just sung of the “pure air” in her bedroom—​he has evidently become acclimated to his demonic companion—​ Marguerite experiences that same air as suffocating—​she is made queasy by the demonic presence she intuits. Marguerite is unnerved not only by the ominous ambiance but also by her dream of the previous night, a vision of Faust. (That was likely Mephistopheles’s doing, since, in Scene 7, he had similarly injected a vision of Marguerite into Faust’s sleep.) Marguerite recounts her reverie in the second half of the recitative (Example 3.19): En songe je l’ai vu … lui, mon futur amant. Qu’il était beau! Dieu! J’étais tant aimée Et combien je l’aimais! Nous verrons-​nous jamais Dans cette vie? Folie!

In dreams I saw him … Him, my future love. That he was beautiful! God! I was so loved And how I loved him! Will we ever see each other In this life? Folly!

Where she exclaims, “God! I was so loved,” Berlioz gives her a more continuous, arioso line, allowing her to luxuriate in the imagined passion; that culminates in, “And how I loved him!”, which reinstates the recitative. With that and an agitated flourish in the violins, her delusion (her redreaming the dream) begins to dissipate, and she ultimately dismisses it as mere “folly.” Berlioz deftly deploys E-​flat and B to paint these psychological shifts. As Marguerite starts to narrate her dream, Berlioz leaves the diatonic clarity of C minor/​major behind and enters a hexatonic haze, as the example illustrates. Not only is E-​flat en route, via P-​L, to B, but that route is itself obfuscated, both melodically and harmonically: melodically, B–​D# on “En songe … vu” delineates B (at least visually) even as the harmony turns to E-​flat; there is thus dream-​like liminality between the two keys (exactly as in the end of Liszt’s first movement). Harmonically, B is deferred by its own elongated dominant. Importantly, when B does arrive, it is on the heels of “Qu’il était beau!,” the moment where the dream’s alternate reality is most palpable. B major is most explicit where Marguerite’s consciousness is most altered (or where she recounts it having been so). That tonal certitude, moreover, coincides with melodic linearity, as mentioned. Then, where the spell starts to evaporate at “et combien,” we enter another nebulous region where, even as the music moves

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122  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg

Example 3.19 Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust, Scene 11, Last Part of Marguerite’s Recitative

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  123 toward E-​flat, B lingers. When E-​flat finally materializes, it is minor (spelled as D♯ minor), as befits “Folie.” The association between B and Marguerite’s altered consciousness, or Mephistopheles’s manipulation of Marguerite, is also evident in the next scene, where Mephistopheles conjures will-​ o’-​ the-​ wisps in order to bring Marguerite under Faust’s seductive spell and to ensure that she will not remain a virgin: “Tu peux bien entrer fille, mais non fille en sortir” (“You can well enter [your house] a maiden but not leave it as a maiden”). The music is an incantatory waltz, complete with a hypnotic pizzicato ostinato. Faust emerges from behind the curtain, at which point, under Mephistopheles’s charms, he and Marguerite sing a passionate duet largely in E with periodic chromatic diversions. B comes into special focus when Marguerite muses, “Je ne sais quelle ivresse dans ses bras me conduit!” (“I do not know what drunkenness leads me into his arms!”), referring to Faust’s (or Mephistopheles’s) Svengali-​ like sway over her. B is then mostly absent until Part IV. By this juncture, Marguerite has been imprisoned. Faust implores Mephistopheles to take him to her. They embark on horseback, but as the forest becomes increasingly phantasmagoric, Faust realizes that Mephistopheles is rushing him not to Marguerite but into hell. In “Pandaemonium” of Scene 19, Faust plummets into the fiery abyss, where creatures of the underworld revel in Mephistopheles’s triumph and Faust’s demise. The tonality sealing Faust’s fate is B major, the key by which Marguerite was seduced. Such identity suggests that it was precisely Faust’s blind lust and obsessive need to possess Marguerite that destroyed him in the end. Like Orpheus, Faust has bent the laws of nature and has harnessed the supernatural to be with his beloved; Faust’s quest, however, has no nobility. Whereas Orpheus truly loves Eurydice, Faust’s fixation with Marguerite is largely sexual, self-​indulgent, and predatory (as our Lisztian protagonist proved to be). E-​flat makes its most notable appearance in Scene 20, where it welcomes Marguerite into heaven. Since this key is aligned with Marguerite’s salvation, it makes sense it has been largely absent until now. Throughout the work, Marguerite has been steeped in Mephistopheles’s infernal aura. Now, with Faust dispatched to hell (and Mephistopheles along with him), the gates of heaven, and of E-​flat, are finally open. E-​flat thus transcends B and its dastardly dealings. In No. 2 of Gounod’s opera, Faust summons Mephistopheles (“À moi, Satan!”). The key is F major, and Mephistopheles obliges with a “Me voici!” in B (note the diabolus-​in-​musica relation). B is forthwith enharmonicized as C♭, which supports an Italian augmented-​6th in E-​flat major. In that key’s tonicized dominant, Mephistopheles goads Faust: “Doutes-​tu de ma puissance? (‘Do you doubt my power [to aid you]?’ ”). At that point, as though to prove his puissance, Mephistopheles slides B-​flat directly into B (at “Fi!”). Later, in G, Faust pines for sensual pleasure; in response, Mephistopheles conjures up (in

124  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg B, en route to E) a mirage of Marguerite at the spinning wheel. This scene thus forges a close connection between B and Mephistopheles’s supernatural prowess. Later on, Marguerite’s brother Valentine tells his friend Wagner67 that he is loath to leave Marguerite behind because she is vulnerable; their mother has died and he is her only kin, the sole person who can safeguard her chastity. Valentine then intones a prayer of protection in E-​flat. Throughout the opera, that key returns whenever Marguerite’s innocence is threatened. For instance, in No. 7, Mephistopheles and Faust arrive at Marguerite’s garden to seduce her. A recitative ends in E-​flat, the dominant of No. 8, in A-​flat. E-​ flat can be taken to symbolize Marguerite being temporarily insulated from harm, safe inside her house, even as, in No. 8, Faust skulks outside, singing an ode to her innocence (“Salut! Demeure chaste et pure”). (Ironically, what Faust finds so compelling about her is precisely what he aims to desecrate.) For good measure, Gounod inflects that E-​flat plagally, in benedictory fashion. Then, as part of his seductive ploy, Mephistopheles leaves at Marguerite’s doorstep a box containing exquisite jewelry and a hand mirror. Marguerite dons the jewels, admiring herself in the mirror, heady with hedonistic delight (the famous “Jewel Song”). But, since she is chaste to the core, her delight is uncharacteristic, a fact she acknowledges by asking her reflection, “Marguerite, Est-​ce toi? Réponds-​moi! Non! ce n’est plus toi! (Marguerite, is it you? Reply! No! It is not you!”). Her claim to not recognize her bedazzled self, while coy on the surface, is more deeply an indication that she is too self-​aware to be entirely vulnerable to Mephistopheles’s manipulations, that the attempted seduction has not been entirely successful. Perhaps it has been mitigated by Valentine’s prayer, a reading borne out by the unexpected interjections of E-​flat in this E-​major aria (see Example 3.20). Of relevance is not only E-​flat’s symbolic import but also its niche in this tonal context. It incites (or is incited by) a hexatonic digression, which perforates prolongational continuity (as analyzed in the example). The slippage into an alternate tonal system (underscored by the subito piano) likely signifies a shift in psychological register, an awareness that she is being lured and her resistance to being so. The onset of B in m. 27 is significant since, here and throughout the opera, it symbolizes seduction and delusion. The juxtaposition of E-​flat and E/​B, then, speaks to a tug-​of-​ war between Marguerite knowing herself and losing herself. Put another way, Marguerite enters an uncanny space, musically embodied not just in the tonal slippage but also in Gounod’s notation on “Est-​ce toi?”: the orchestra’s triad is spelled E♭ major, the voice’s D♯ major. They are the same and yet not the same, just as the person Marguerite beholds in the mirror is at once herself and not herself. B’s next notable appearance is in Faust and Marguerite’s duet (No. 11), in F Major. Marguerite is uncertain whether or not Faust loves her. After some internal back-​and-​forth (“Il m’ai-​me, Il ne m’ai-​me pas” [“He loves me, he

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  125

Example 3.20 Gounod, Faust, “Jewel Song,” mm. 20–​29

loves me not”]), she concludes, “Il m’ai me!” as the music, after only minimal tonal preparation, alights on a B-​major triad, which tonally confirms the seduction. It also glosses that seduction as malevolent, especially given B’s tritone relation to F. This tritonal collision harkens back to that in the beginning of the opera, where Faust invites Mephistopheles into his life. That invitation has now been extended to Marguerite as well. For the moment, however, she goes no further than throwing Faust a kiss. The harmony here is E-​flat major—​ Valentine’s prayer continues to prove efficacious. But not for long. In the next, spinning wheel scene we encounter a pregnant Marguerite; evidently, her protective cloak had been lifted and a tryst had transpired (one not depicted in the opera itself). Marguerite now laments having been abandoned by Faust after said tryst. The recitative begins in tonal flux but soon lands on/​in B, where the heroine confesses, “Et pourtant Dieu le sait, je n’étais pas infâme; Tout ce qui t’entraîna, mon âme, N’était que tendresse et qu’amour!” (“And yet God knows, I was not infamous [wanton]; everything that drew you, my soul, was tenderness and love”). Yet, the key belies that sentiment—​it was less “tenderness and love” than Mephistopheles’s machinations, of which Marguerite was unaware. Now, alone, the consequences of the relationship are hers to bear, quite literally. Later, a dramatic battle between Valentine and Faust/​ Mephistopheles ensues, one largely in E-​flat, which would seem to bode well for Valentine. However, Valentine tears off the protective medallion that Marguerite gave him in Act 1. The music here is in C-​flat. Evidently, Marguerite is no more able to safeguard him than he was her. After Valentine’s death, the chorus sings a

126  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg lament in B minor, the key’s only notable appearance in this opera, and a tonal token of Mephistopheles having caused this sorrow. One last example deserves mention. The final number (No. 19), the last of four tableaux, takes place in Marguerite’s prison cell (she has since killed her child), where Faust and Mephistopheles have arrived to spare her from execution. As Marguerite recognizes the sound of Faust’s voice, she daydreams of their first meeting and longs for her lost innocence. When she reminisces about the garden where they first fell in love (a garden symbolic of her former natural purity), the music migrates from G to E-​flat. At the climax of the Trio, Marguerite offers herself to God in B major, in the midst of which E-​flat appears (Example 3.21); the opera’s apex thus foregrounds the two warring forces and tonalities that have led Marguerite to this juncture. But E-​flat subsides, leaving B major, which segues into an “Apotheosis” postlude in which Marguerite’s soul is redeemed. Perhaps, then, B major, the key of Mephistopheles’s malignance, is transformed into something beneficent, evil is transformed into good. Whereas Berlioz’s B, in the end, was negated by E-​flat,

Example 3.21 Gounod, Faust, End of Final Trio

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  127 Gounod’s B persists, serving as a vehicle of sublimation. If B in the Berlioz is a problem to be eradicated, in the Gounod it is an irrepressible emblem of transcendence. 3.6 Conclusion E-​flat (major/​minor) and B (major/​minor), in their interaction, were potent and pervasive musical symbols in nineteenth-​century music. The appendix documents additional instances of this complex; the examples could easily multiply. What extramusical motifs, in summary, have we encountered, and what were some hermeneutic principles that implicitly led us toward them? We have seen E-​flat and B minor signify the uncanny in Die Winterreise, and E-​flat major/​minor—​abetted by B minor—​signify the same in the Impromptu. In the first movement of Schubert’s Trio, B minor launches interval-​cycle excursions, which signify introspective hiatuses from the wanderer’s journey. In the Finale, B minor is a memory trace, but one that brings the past into the more fully comprehending present. In the Rhenish’s first movement, B in relation to E-​flat is a problem; in the fourth movement, it is a token of autonomy; then, in the Finale, it becomes reconciled, in a sense, with E-​flat, since the motives and secular/​sacred tropes with which those keys are associated have become reconciled. Liszt’s concerto reconciles materiality and ethereality via thematic synthesis, and by extension, E-​flat/​B synthesis. Yet, in both the Rhenish and the Concerto, tonal synthesis, at least, is short-​lived, for B ultimately succumbs to E-​flat. In the Faust works, B typically wields seductive and supernatural power over against E-​flat’s protective aura. Our hermeneutic readings were inspired by contextual factors and structural processes in equal measure. We will say a few words about each side of the equation. Contexts conditioning music-​hermeneutic interpretation come in several forms: external (extra-​opus), internal (intra-​opus), and intertextual (inter-​ opus). External contexts may comprise historical (including composer-​ biographical) factors and philosophical notions and tensions. Internal contexts are words included either within a piece—​the text of a song—​or with a piece—​the paratext that is a title or program. These invariably influence how the music is understood (and vice versa). Finally, many, if not most, musical works of the nineteenth century reside within an intertextual network, such that a given work acquires certain meanings by virtue of how it relates to the other work(s) it overtly or covertly evokes (whether by the same composer or a different one). We have invoked all three kinds of context. We relied on external context in interpreting the Rhenish—​Schumann’s experience in Cologne was our historical point of departure—​and Liszt’s concerto—​the work/​performance dialectic and also his conceit of “dead hands” were our music-​philosophical points of

128  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg departure. Naturally, we relied on internal context in interpreting the vocal music. And we relied on intertextual context, for example, in interpreting Schubert’s instrumental works: our hermeneutic gambit was to situate them in relation to Winterreise (following Fisk 2001). We similarly situated the Rhenish and the Liszt in relation to the Eroica and other Beethoven symphonies.68 As to musical structure, our main strategy was to draw correlations between tonal/​motivic processes and extramusical states on the basis of homology. For instance, we ascribed to the first movement of Schubert’s Trio a dialectic between journeying forward and pausing to contemplate the journey; that reading hinged on Schubert’s dialectic between a diatonic through line and hexatonic digressions—​a dialectic to which the extramusical one is structurally analogous. In this, we basically followed Adorno’s (1988) methodology (although here and elsewhere, our extramusical states extended beyond the social, which is Adorno’s primary purview). But whereas Adorno seems to endow his analogies with the status of truthful and transparent representations, we are more circumspect. For, as Bryan Parkhurst (2017, 182–​89) points out, isomorphism is not a sufficient condition for representation. The diatonic/​hexatonic dialectic is homologous with all sorts of experiences (many of which, admittedly, are bound to be fairly similar) and thus does not automatically represent any particular one. Hence, we make no claim to the pieces we covered representing the meanings we ascribed to them (let alone representing only those meanings), our occasional use of “signify” (and related terms) notwithstanding. By that word, rather, we mean that a given work, by virtue of its structural processes, resonates with, is analogous with, certain experiences, emotions, or ideas, and probably resonates with many others as well. Which among those we chose was partially delimited by the particular context we adopted.69 Finally, harnessing pertinent contexts and carefully correlating the structural and extramusical will ground a hermeneutic reading, endowing it with endorsability, if not veracity. Still, every interpretive endeavor is ultimately a leap of faith. An epistemological chasm ineluctably separates the exegete and her object; no matter how studious and diligent her path in approaching that chasm, she eventually has to vault over it, embracing a lack of certitude (“interpretation can produce meaning only at the cost of producing uncertainty about it” [Kramer 2011, 12]). That lack, however, as Lawrence Kramer insists, is no impediment to interpretation—​it is its very precondition. For, musical meaning is less something one unearths and more something one makes or performs; to interpret is “to enunciate a meaning that has always already been inscribed by (or through, never in) the object but only after the interpretation has intervened” (ibid., 8, his emphases). And, “potential meaning is not a latency that may or may not be realized but a pressure to realize meanings that may or may not have been latent” (ibid., 74). We can only hope that, in each of our readings, having applied an apt contextual frame and a close structural analysis, we took a leap to make a meaning that struck the reader as one the work, if only in retrospect, plausibly potentiated.70

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  129

Appendix A Additional E-​flat/​B-​oriented Works in the (Long) Nineteenth-​Century Carl Maria von Weber, Der Freischütz (1817–​21) See, for example, the Wolf’s Glen scene: Max sings an arioso in E-​flat, where he stares down into the Wolf’s Glen, horrified. The recitative moves to B major, before the arioso takes up E-​flat again. Felix Mendelssohn, Symphony no. 1 in C minor, op. 11 (1824) In the E-​flat second movement, an early C♭ foreshadows a shift toward B en route to E-​flat minor. (Curiously, Mendelssohn employs a C-​major key signature for the B-​major foray.) Schubert, Mass no. 6 in E-​flat, D. 950 (1828) An audacious HEXPOLE progression begins the Sanctus. (Cohn 2012, 31 inspects this passage, along with a strikingly similar one from Act 3 of Wagner’s Parsifal.) Robert Schumann, “Lieb’ Liebchen, leg’s Händchen auf’s Herze mein,” no. 4 from Liederkreis, op. 24 (1840) It is in E minor, but where the character sings of a carpenter (Zimmermann) lurking within his pounding chest, constructing a coffin for his heart, the B-​ major dominant gives way to B diminished, that to E♭ minor, and that (via L) back to a B dominant. The uncanniness of the image and progression is compounded by the eerie cadence where the character sings “Todtensarg” largely a cappella and after the piano has already finished its phrase. Schumann, Dichterliebe, op. 48 (1840) Song 13, “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet,” is in E-​ flat minor; Song 14, “Allnächtlich im Traume seh’ ich dich,” is in B major. The saturnine E-​flat minor is apt for the emotional nadir of the cycle, in which the protagonist dreams of losing his beloved. Then, B signals the relief the protagonist feels when his beloved bestows on him kindness (if only in the dream). These two songs diverge from the cycle’s overriding tonal scheme: as Hoeckner (2006) observes, Songs 1–​12 either progress along a descending-​5th axis or shift from a major key to its relative minor. Songs 13–​14, in digressing from this scheme, suspend the tonal “reality” of the cycle, illustrative of the dream-​ states the songs depict. The L-​related keys enact an alternate tonal logic, which accords with the curious logic of the dreamworld, whose rules of sense are decidedly distinct from those of waking life.

130  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg Schumann, Piano Quartet in E-​flat, op. 47 (1842) See the first movement, mm. 92–​103 (as analyzed by Smith 2011, Fig. 12.8). Charles-​Valentin Alkan, Grande sonate: Les quatre âges, op. 33 (1847) Each of the four movements of this piano sonata represents a decade in the life of an unnamed fictional protagonist. The first movement is in D major but ends in B major; the second movement is in D-​sharp minor, bearing the marking “Quasi Faust.” Liszt, Faust Symphony (1854–​57) In the first movement, the E-​flat Allegro Agitato is soon followed by a B-​ major section (at rinforz molto). Johannes Brahms, Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann for piano, four hands, op. 23 (1861) Perhaps it is no surprise that Brahms chooses to set one of his “secondary-​ key variations” (Au 2011) in B major (Var. 5); after all, B is the very first chromatic pitch in Schumann’s soulful E-​flat-​major theme. The discerning listener will hear pre-​echoes of B major in Var. 4 and after-​echoes in Var. 6. Arrigo Boito, Mefistofele (1868, rev.1875–​76) In contrast to Berlioz and Gounod, who treat only Part I of Faust, Boito treats Part II—​the so-​called “Classical Faust”—​as well. The complex keys are especially interactive in the Prologue, Margherita’s death scene, Faust and Elena’s love duet, “l’amore delirio,” and the Epilogue. Brahms, “Die Mainacht,” op. 43, no 2 (text by Ludwig Hölty) (1868) The protagonist walks through a nocturnal forest, accompanied by E-​flat. The nightingale’s lonely song mirrors to him his own isolation, underscored by E-​flat minor. In the ternary’s B section, a pair of amorous doves croons to B major; the wanderer in his despair finds their joy unpalatable, as the music again turns to E-​flat minor. In A′, E-​flat major provides a glimmer of hope that he will reunite with his beloved. Richard Wagner, Die Götterdämmerung (1869–​74) As Robert Bailey (1977, 53) notes, E-​flat and B control the tonal structure of the entire first act. Liszt, Mephisto Waltz no. 2 (1881, first an orchestral piece then a piano arrangement) The first section emphasizes B as V/​E after which it passes to E-​flat. At the end, despite gestures toward domesticating B by respelling it as C♭, B seizes the last word with defiant repeated notes and tremolos. However, the B sonority at the end is a startlingly inconclusive diminished triad!

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  131 Antonín Dvořák, Piano Quartet no. 2 in E-​flat, op. 87, B. 162 (1889) In the third movement (Andante moderato, grazioso), the de facto Scherzo and Trio are in E-​flat and B, respectively. Dvořák, String Quintet no. 3 in E-​flat, op. 97 (American) (1893) The first movement is in E-​flat, the second in B—​a large-​scale projection of these keys’ interaction within the first movement itself. Brahms, Sonata for Clarinet (or Viola) and Piano in E-​flat, op. 120, no. 2 (1894) In the first movement, B appears late in the development; it is juxtaposed with E-​flat in mm. 96–​98. The second movement is in E-​flat minor, with B, foreshadowed in the first section, governing the contrasting middle section. Hans Pfitzner, “Sehnsucht,” op. 10, no. 1 (1901) A forlorn itinerant longs for his love in E-​flat minor; imagining encountering her elicits the parallel major, which in turn wanders into B minor. Those HEXPOLE keys are uncanny in that the middle, B-​minor stanza conjures a Janus-​faced maiden, one who could just as easily (and eerily) gaze at him “coldly” as warmly, “wie eine Sonne.” The return in the last stanza to E-​flat minor does not bode well for the protagonist. Pfitzner, “Ich und Du,” op. 11, no. 1 (1901) This song begins in E-​flat minor and ends in E-​flat major; the middle section is in B major, bearing a no-​sharp key signature (as with Mendelssohn’s Symphony no. 1, second movement). Gustav Mahler, Symphony no. 7 in E minor (1904–​05) The first movement frequently vacillates between E-​flat major/​minor and B major/​minor. Mahler, Symphony no. 8 in E-​flat (1906) Part II, based on the final scene of Faust, caps a cluster of Faust works—​ the Alkan, Berlioz, Boito, Gounod, and Liszt—​all of which centralize E-​ flat and B. (On cursory inspection, it appears that Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust [WoO 3] does not.) Why so many composers treating Faust were drawn to that particular pairing we cannot say for sure, but it is clearly a bona fide phenomenon. Jean Sibelius, Symphony no. 5 in E-​flat, op. 82 (three versions: 1915, 1916, 1919) The first movement ventures from E-​flat into a major 3rd above and below—​ G and B, with the latter occluding a diatonic cadence as early as m. 13 and ultimately serving as an epiphanic, “breakthrough” sonority at m. 106. The Finale emends these chromatic relations by venturing into a minor 3rd

132  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg above and below (G-​flat and C). Even more crucial, for Hepokoski (1993) at least, is that these coloristic mediants are gradually subdued in favor of an affirmation of tonic/​dominant. Indeed, as Hepokoski declares, Sibelius uses “these non-​dominant-​oriented colour-​shifts … [as] an alternative to the more powerful, but historically eclipsed tonic-​dominant harmony. From this perspective, much of the work is ‘about’ the difficulty of crystallizing … [a]‌successfully functional dominant …” (59). Notes 1 Henceforth, “x major” will be designated simply by “x,” with occasional exceptions for clarity. Also, in most cases, we will use “Eb” when referring to a pitch, “E-​flat” when referring to a key. 2 Anson-​Cartwright’s Appendixes 1, 2, and 3 (2000, 197–​200) tabulate E-​flat works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, respectively, in which all these pitches figure notably. 3 To cite only two of the more famous examples: Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-​flat, D. 960 (op. posthumous) (first movement) features a primary theme in small-​ ternary form whose initial, antecedent phrase ends enigmatically with a trilled Gb in the bass resolving to F. After the consequent phrase comes a contrasting middle section housed in bVI (G-​flat), whose conversion to a German augmented-​6th chord triggers a tonic-​situated reprise. The secondary theme is set in #v (F-​sharp minor). Brahms’s Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34a (first movement) follows the reverse course, stating a theme (the secondary) in #v (C-​sharp minor), then one (the closing) in (b)VI (D-​flat). 4 See Bailey (1985), Korsyn (1996), Krebs (1996), Samson (1996), and Smith (2009). 5 We offer E-​ flat/​ B as an addition to the repertoire of pitch-​ specific complexes within the universe of nineteenth-​century/​early-​twentieth-​century chromatic tonality, others being “Chopin’s B-​major complex,” on which see Rothstein (2000), the “Ab–​C–​E complex,” on which see Bribitzer-​Stull (2006), and “Debussy’s G#/​Ab complex,” on which see Pomeroy (2018). That universe also includes pitch-​indifferent complexes such as the “double-​agent complex,” on which see Cohn (2012, 74–​75); “double-​tonic complex,” on which see the previous footnote; “Neapolitan complex,” on which see Wintle (1987); and “submediant complex,” on which see Laitz (1996). 6 The latest work he discusses is Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E-​flat, op. 81a (Les Adieux), completed in 1810, although Appendix 7 tabulates a few other nineteenth-​ century works (other than by Beethoven). 7 We have no definitive answer as to why the E-​flat/​B antagonism in particular was one of the most common I/​#V pairings. One conjecture is that, in some other keys, the #V key is untenable: for instance, in C major, #V is G-​sharp; in D major, #V is A-​sharp. In other keys, the I is itself unwieldy and thus less commonly employed, as with G-​flat major. What viable pairings remain? B-​flat/​F-​sharp and A-​flat/​E. Is E-​flat/​B more common than either of those? Only a systematic corpus study, which we are not prepared to offer, would tell. 8 Nottebohm (1887, 326), quoted in Anson-​Cartwright (2000, 179, n9). 9 Michael Tusa (1993), notably, has demonstrated this phenomenon with respect to Beethoven’s use of C minor.

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  133 1 0 For a helpful introduction to neo-​Riemannian theory, visit Cohn (1996). 11 His argument is too intricate to summarize here. Suffice to say, the chords constitute “an exceptionally potent instance of a Wechselwirkung, a reciprocal exchange. Each triad destabilizes the other ...the musical equivalent of Escher’s hands, which draw each other’s cuffs” (2004, 307)—​an uncanny image if ever there was one! 12 See Freud (1919) and also Jentsch (1906). The latter study is in a sense a precursor of Freud’s, one that Freud adjudges “fertile but not exhaustive” (1919, 1). 13 To be precise, the above describes only one of three “levels” of Idea in Schoenberg’s writings, all of which are expounded in Cross (1980); also see Boge (1990). 14 Schoenberg (1967, 102), our emphasis. 15 See Neff’s Schoenbergian gloss on this passage (2006, 39–​45). 16 HC stands for half cadence, MC for medial caesura, PAC for perfect authentic cadence, PT for primary theme, ST for secondary theme, and TR for transition. 17 “What I call ‘the Indugio’—​so named because it signals a playful tarrying or lingering (It., indugiare) that delays the arrival of a cadence—​was a schema for extending and focusing on the ...6/​3 or 6/​5/​3 chord” over 4̂ in the bass (Gjerdingen 2007, 274). 18 Schubert is even more closely associated with such recursive, antidevelopmental tendencies in sonata form, on which see Adorno (1928) and Salzer (1928). 19 A similar retransitional move is found in the first movement of Haydn’s Piano Sonata in E-​flat, Hob. XVI:49. 20 On abandoned cadences and how they differ from deceptive and evaded cadences, see Caplin (1998, 101–​07). 21 The second movement mostly takes a break from the tonal problem, turning to metric problems—​ that is, metric dissonance—​ instead. See Klorman’s analysis (2016, 255–​66). 22 This is not a sonata-​rondo but what Hepokoski and Darcy term a “chain rondo” (2006, 401), which boasts not two but three couplets (contrasting episodes) and not three but four refrains; the resulting scheme is AB–​AC–​AD–​A. 23 Hepokoski and Darcy assert that “the initial AB (mm. 1–​51) is shaped into a sonata exposition—​with a P[T]‌-​based S[T] in V—​which never returns symmetrically as a recapitulation” (2006, 401). It seems, then, that what we are considering the initial ST (B1), they consider the transition, reserving ST proper for what we are calling B2. 24 The viola started coming into its own in the C couplet, telescoping its eventual star turn in the next refrain. Note that the viola undertook a similar journey toward equality in the first movement: not until m. 98 did it enjoy its own iteration of a theme. 25 The genesis of the cycle, however, if anything points to Part I rather than Part II being self-​enclosed. For, the poems with which Schubert initially worked were solely Müller’s first 12, published in 1823 as a self-​standing cycle. When Schubert later encountered Müller’s full 24 poems, published in 1824 (in Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten), Schubert evidently aimed to transform Part I “from a self-​contained cycle into something subordinate to a greater whole” (Kramer 1994, 151–​52). Hence, there was never any question of Schubert having conceived of Part II as self-​contained, only Part I, and that conception went by the wayside with Müller’s 1824 publication. Still, genetic circumstances notwithstanding, Part II is internally unified by the trope of death and is thus, in our view, quasi-​autonomous. Incidentally, upon adding the second set of poems, Schubert transposed the last song of the first set, “Einsamkeit,” from D minor to B minor. Kramer surmises

134  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg that this transposition served to neutralize the closural function “Einsamkeit” had possessed by virtue of its D-​minor key (the same key in which Part I begins) in order to pave a path into Part II. “Transposed to B minor at the inception of a new ‘Fortsetzung’, Einsamkeit loses its sense of ending ...structural closure is dissolved” (1994, 171). 26 We derive the narrative structure from Suurpää (2014); the tonal structure is our own. A key difference between our tonal overview and Richard Kramer’s (1994, 181) is that we regard the G minor of “Wegweiser” as passing between the A of “Täuschung” and the F of “Wirtshaus”; though “Wegweiser” is pivotal dramatically, in the grand scheme we deem it embellishmental tonally. For Kramer, by contrast, the G minor is central (and not only to Part II but to the cycle as a whole). To his reading redounds a happy correlation between tonal and narrative import, but we find the tonal reading itself unpersuasive. 27 Besides Kramer (1994, 162 and 181) and Suurpää (2014, 175), Barry (2000, 92) and Latham (2009, 331) also assess large-​scale tonal design in Winterreise. Of these four, only Kramer does so on the basis of Schubert’s original keys. Kramer does so partially to preserve certain cyclical features, subtle inter-​song connections, as he astutely sees them. Incidentally, neither Suurpää, Barry, nor we supply an Urlinie; Latham does for the entire cycle, Kramer only for Part I. Latham’s is a 3̂-​line reading, Kramer’s a 5̂-​line. Latham’s Urlinie, however, is permanently (and thus unorthodoxly) interrupted, never advancing beyond 2̂. Such, for Latham, is a neat structural embodiment of the cycle closing on a note of uncertainty as to the wanderer’s fate—​ will he live or die? For detailed Schenkerian graphs of individual songs, see Suurpää (2014) and also Everett (1990), which focuses on the ubiquitous 6̂–​5̂ motive. 28 If one were sympathetic to transposed keys, one might posit, on the basis of our textual reading, an uncanny HEXPOLE relation between the transposed B minor of “Einsamkeit” and the E-​flat of “Post.” In fact, the B-​minor chord on which “Einsamkeit” ends and the Eb-​major chord on which “Post” begins would be virtually the only direct HEXPOLE progression in the cycle. (The only other is the B major–​G minor–​B major progression in mm. 62–​65 of “Auf dem Flusse.”) We thank Lauri Suurpää for offering this point in a personal correspondence. Incidentally, such a harmonic-​cum-​affective relation straddling Parts I and II would bear out Richard Kramer’s assertion (previously cited in n.25) that Schubert transposed “Einsamkeit” in order to create a conduit into Part II. 29 “A mind disordered finds no secure metrical foothold,” says Susan Youens (1991, 301). Note, the wanderer’s disintegrating mind is a counterpart of the Leiermann’s decrepit body. 30 The song in which Schubert most explicitly takes up the trope of doubleness with which the uncanny is associated is “Der Doppelgänger,” the 13th song of Schwanengesang, D. 957 (1828). The HEXPOLE progression as such does not appear, although B minor and D minor come face-​to-​face in mm. 46–​47, where the protagonist asks his double why he “apes” the pain of his love (“was äffst du nach mein Liebesleid”). But there are other harmonic means, after all, by which to elicit the uncanny. Witness the postlude by which B major and E minor tie each other’s cuffs, so to speak. 31 To take another example, in Schubert’s “Ganymed,” Clark (2011) notes, “surface-​level tonic and dominants help articulate the gradual changes, but the overall effect is one of harmonic metamorphosis rather than a series of functional relationships” (141).

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  135 32 Rings (2007) deals much more extensively with the neo-​Riemannian/​Schenkerian dialogics in this piece. 33 Caplin (1998) affirms that “the coda of a large ternary frequently refers to material from the interior theme, just as the coda of a sonata often ‘recapitulates’ ideas from the development” (216). 34 Also see Cohn’s analysis of this coda within his discussion of the so-​called “double-​ agent complex” (2012, 74–​75). 35 In Nicholas Marston’s reading, Schubert’s B-​flat Piano Sonata (first movement) deploys a similar subversion. Marston does not hear the G-​flat element (recall our n3) in the recapitulation as normalized into B-​flat but rather hears B-​flat (m. 254) as sounding like G-​flat—​that is, like bVI (in D). In this, he muses, “ ‘home’ is made a foreign place … the peripheral, the deviant, might challenge and win out over the normative” (2000, 265). 36 Fisk (2001, 122). He draws on Kinderman (1986) here. 37 Our graph is mainly concerned with tonal relationships, not thematic ones. Suffice to say, each main zone of the three-​key exposition hosts several motivically interrelated themes, which we won’t take pains to parse here. 38 Cf. Mak’s reading (2006, 302, Example 10), which construes B at m. 48 as an enharmonicized Cb (bVI) and as composing out Bb across mm. 35 [sic]–​84 (although the Cb gives way to, or is corrected by, C♮ [VI] at m. 67). 39 An alternate reading is possible, one affording B (minor) greater structural stability: just maybe, the B minor of ST and the B major/​minor inaugurating the development are points of articulation, boundaries of a prolongational span in which Bb of the tertiary theme is a lower-​neighbor to B. The resultant configuration, B♮–​Bb–​B♮, would be a felicitous enlargement of the lower-​neighbor melodic motive that first appears in m. 16 and is augmented in m. 140. 40 Though Adorno (1928) tends to focus on the “ex-​centric” or directionless nature of Schubertian space (and the atemporal nature of Schubertian time), he also acknowledges the need, when grappling with Schubert’s sonata forms, to somehow square such lyrical stasis with that form’s inherent dramaticism. Some studies that so grapple, in one way or another, are Burstein (1997), Dahlhaus (1986), Horton (2016), Hyland (2016), and Mak (2006). Speaking of Schubertian space, Jonathan Guez documents another circumstance (in addition to the interval-​cycle interregna noted earlier) in which Schubert’s wanderer “stop[s]‌to think about the direction in which he is traveling” across the metaphorical landscape: the recapitulation that inserts measures of rest into its referential, expository model, measures that serve to expand said model and defer inevitable goals. His example is Schubert’s Piano Sonata in C minor, D. 958 (Guez 2018, 230–​31). 41 Hatten (2004) (Chapter 8) demonstrates such gestural cyclicity in two Schubert piano sonatas. 42 Something similar occurs in Mendelssohn’s String Quartet no. 2 in A minor, op. 13. The composer bases the slow introduction on the beginning of his song, “Frage” (op. 9, no. 1). When that passage returns—​heartbreakingly—​at the Quartet’s conclusion, it is a memory in the service of fulfillment, for it picks up the song where it had left off in the introduction and completes it (mm. 386–​398). See Golomb (2006, 117). 43 For more on the genesis of the work, turn to Tunbridge (2007, 107–​08). 44 Schumann’s initial musical response was to set August Becker’s “Rheinlied,” which Schumann published as Der deutsche Rhein: Patriotisches Lied, op. 27b and WoO1 for solo voice, chorus, and piano.

136  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg 45 Just as, according to Newcomb (1984a), Schumann’s Symphony no. 2 in C, op. 61 has an affinity (a narrative one) with Beethoven’s Fifth. 46 For a graph of Schumann’s first movement, see Smith (2011, 255, Figure 12.12). 47 Byros (2012) and (2014) chalk up this maneuver to the Le–​Sol–​Fi–​Sol schema, of which Byros cites the Eroica as paradigmatic. Byros (2014) proceeds to explain that the E-​flat/​G minor opposition frames the symphony as a whole, the two keys and their associated tropes of the pastoral and the ombra, respectively, never being fully reconciled. 48 On the earlier work’s convoluted genesis, see Daverio (1997, 99–​100). 49 Here we basically concur with Michael Musgrave, for whom the symphony as a whole evinces a balance between “Seelenzustände and the dynamics of a large-​scale structure” (1996, 147), but we go a step further in asserting that Schumann does not merely counterbalance these two temporal modes but synthesizes them. And we depart from Scott Burnham, who does not detect any goal-​orientation in this work. For him, the movements are character pieces writ large; each is “self-​contained,” reflecting “the rest of the symphony not by assuming an indispensable function in a teleological process but through picturesque contrast. Schumann’s movements are more like paintings in a well-​appointed gallery than psychologically consequential stages of a multi-​movement Classical-​style sonata” (2007, 158). 50 Schumann uses the same tactic on a much larger scale in Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6 (1837, revised 1850 and renamed Davidsbündler). A cycle-​long tug-​of-​war between the paired keys of G and B is resolved, in the antepenultimate piece, in favor of B, precisely by recasting G (for the first time in the work) as a G German augmented-​ 6th. See Kaminsky (1989, 222). Such a strategy is especially associated with Schubert. Of his Quartettsatz in C minor, D. 703, for example, Brian Black observes that two secondary keys, G and A-​flat, vie for dominance. The former wins out precisely by expropriating the latter as a cadential element: “Thus what was potentially a competing tonality [A-​flat] is absorbed into its rival [G]‌as a crucial element in the latter’s grounding” (2009, 7). 51 This G-​minor theme, which arpeggiates g: i–​III–​V–​i (not pictured), approximately parallels the deeper middleground structure of the exposition, which, on Smith’s (2011) view, traverses E-​flat: I–​iii–​II–​V (where I, iii, and V are the pillars of a three-​ key exposition). Note, however, that Smith (basically following Suurpää 2005) subordinates iii to the I before it and to the II [V/​V] after it; in other words, iii is nested within a more fundamental I–​II–​V frame. Hence, these local and more global arpeggiations do not share the same precise “structural description” (in Cohn’s [1992] phrase) and thus, depending on one’s viewpoint, may or may not instantiate the same motive (see ibid.). What Smith relishes in this reading of the exposition is the disparity between thematic design and tonal structure: the ST in iii is more thematically distinguished than the tertiary area in V and yet is tonally transient; conversely, the tertiary area in V is more tonally stable but less thematically distinguished. See Smith (2011, 152–​53). 52 Let us define the natural-​submediant as that lying a whole step above the dominant, as occurs in the major mode and by modal mixture in the minor mode, and the b-​submediant as that lying a half step above the dominant, as occurs in the minor mode and by modal mixture in the major mode. 53 A number of mid-​nineteenth-​century pieces partake of this strategy, which is hardly surprising since, at the time, Goethean organicism was all the rage and such cross-​ sectional continuity created an especially vivid musical image of organic unity. Perhaps the earliest notable instance is the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  137 Sonata in F minor, op. 57 (Appassionata); also see Smith’s analysis of the first movement of Brahms’s Piano Quartet in C minor, op. 60 (2005, 66–​107). Incidentally, returning to the Rhenish, David Epstein, noting that all main thematic 6 melodies outline a 4 chord built on 5̂, identifies that sonority as the Grundgestalt of 6 the entire symphony. Thus, the V4 at the start of the recapitulation is “a chordal condensation of the basic-​shape motive” (1979, 158, n5). 54 We thank Harald Krebs for driving these points home to us. 55 In a similar vein, Lydia Goehr observes, Performing under the ideal of Werktreue generated its own tension ... an alternative concept of performance emerged to satisfy the performer’s need to perform without restrictions imposed by composers. Liszt, for example ... develop[ed] two distinct forms of performance, first, performances committed to faithful renditions of works, second, virtuoso performances devoted to the art of extemporization and the show of impressive performance technique. (1992, 232–​33) 56 The numbers denote the cardinality of steps traversed in the diatonic scale (“+​1” indicates a single step up, “−2” a 3rd down, and so on). 57 Hence our including the work within the “Symphonic Cluster.” In fact, an impetus for Liszt’s piece was evidently the concerto symphonique, one of whose primary practitioners was Henry Litolff, to whom Liszt dedicated the concerto. As Taruskin specifies, Liszt’s debt to Litolff was in the concerto’s bigness of conception and also “in its colorful orchestration that included piccolo and triangle, instruments first used by Litolff in ... a keyboard concerto” (2010a, 277). 58 To be clear, Liszt’s concerto postdates his virtuoso period (1811–​47) and belongs to his Weimar period, where Liszt had turned himself into a Composer with a capital C (as an anonymous reviewer reminded us). Still, certain elements of the writing strongly resonate with the virtuoso vehicles of his earlier period and are somewhat distinct from the more composerly elements. 59 Alan Walker parenthetically refers to the concerto having only three movements, but does not elaborate. He also states that, although Liszt undoubtedly ran these movements “into a seamless join” (1989, 151, n45), they do not form a large-​scale sonata (1989, 151) as do those of Liszt’s B-​minor Piano Sonata. On both points we disagree. 60 Compare the concerto in that regard with, for example, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in D minor, op. 31, no. 2 (Tempest), first movement. Here, thematic agency overrides formal exigencies—​those of the recapitulation, in fact. At that juncture, Julian Horton explains, thematic specificities ...are not reconciled with the dictates of formal convention. Instead, the recapitulation sacrifices convention to subjectivity. ... The first-​theme reprise is essentially a region of subjectification, which temporarily dissolves the ... main subject into a fantasia on its motivic content, an event from which the recapitulation’s synthetic function never fully recovers ... (2014, 127) 61 Such a pensive demeanor (however much Liszt may have calculated it for theatrical effect) is at odds with the more common image of the onstage Liszt as all flailing limbs and facial contortions—​his student Amy Fay reported that “Liszt’s face is all

138  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg a play of feature, a glow of fancy, a blaze of imagination.” Quoted in Leistra-​Jones (2013, 397). On the cultural symbolism of Liszt’s visual style, see Kramer (2002). 62 A brilliant demonstration of this phenomenon can be seen in a performance by Martha Argerich. Go to www.yout​ube.com/​watch?v=​FQqQ​cWoT​PaU&t=​16s 63 Harrison (2002) offers a somewhat different interpretation: although he also regards the five-​sharp signature as an anticipation of the next movement’s key, he is more interested in the D-​sharp tonality, on both tonal and hermeneutic counts. Tonally, it intimates an “unconformed” scheme, whereby the movement’s E-​flat and D-​ sharp are not precisely identical. Hermeneutically, the tonal duality encompasses opposing energies: E-​flat signals closure while D-​sharp signals a “forward-​looking perspective” (140). His hermeneutic point could pertain to E-​flat/​B as well. 64 Granted, some readers might take these opposing effects to represent two different personas, not, as we do, two aspects of a single persona. Music is notoriously vague on this front. Seth Monahan observes that, in many cases, an analyst will invite us to imagine all of a work’s events—​even those perceived as oppositional or hostile—​as occurrences within a single psyche ...In other instances, these opposing elements are understood to be truly external to ...the dominant agency. (2013, 329) 65 This graph is somewhat unconventional or homespun. It contains a bass-line reduction, which charts the interplay between diatonic/Schenkerian and hexatonic/transformational systems. It also shows, in the upper staff, voice-leading parsimony among various chords and keys. The voiceleading is normalized in order to highlight the economy of motion. In keeping with that constraint and with wanting to maintain keyboard style and closed spacing throughout, parallels occasionally result; this is simply an artifact of the graph. 66 For a detailed account of its genesis and its connections to Berlioz’s earlier Huit Scénes de Faust, op. 24 (1829), see Rushton (2019). 67 In Goethe’s original text, Wagner is Faust’s academic assistant. 68 See Reynolds (2003) for an especially persuasive testimonial to the ubiquity of intertextual reference in nineteenth-century music. 69 We take “resonance” from Anthony Newcomb, who claims that musical expressiveness results from the metaphorical resonances or analogies that a viewer-listener finds between properties that an object possesses and properties of experience outside the object itself. Thus expression results from the intrinsic properties of an artwork but also from the metaphorical resonances these properties may have for the perceiver. (1984b, 625) 70 We heartily thank Harald Krebs, Bryan Parkhurst, and Susan Youens for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.

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142  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg Lehman, Frank. 2014. “Schubert’s SLIDEs: Tonal (Non-​)Integration of a Paradoxical Transformation.” Music Theory and Analysis 1, no. 1–​2: 61–​100. Leistra-​Jones, Karen. 2013. “Staging Authenticity: Joachim, Brahms, and the Politics of Werktreue Performance.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 66, no. 2: 397–​436. Mak, Su Yin. 2006. “Schubert’s Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric.” The Journal of Musicology 23, no. 2: 263–​306. Marston, Nicholas. 2000. “Schubert’s Homecoming.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 125, no. 2: 248–​70. McCreless, Patrick. 1986. “Song Order in the Song Cycle: Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op.39.” Music Analysis 5, no. 1: 5–​28. —​—​—​. 1991. “Syntagmatics and Paradigmatics: Some Implications for the Analysis of Chromaticism in Tonal Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 13, no. 2: 147–​78. Monahan, Seth. 2013. “Action and Agency Revisited.” Journal of Music Theory 57, no. 2: 321–​71. Musgrave, Michael. 1996. “Symphony and Symphonic Scenes: Issues of Structure and Context in Schumann’s ‘Rhenish’ Symphony.” In Analytical Strategies and Musical Interpretation: Essays on Nineteenth-​and Twentieth-​Century Music . Edited by Craig Ayrey and Mark Everist, 120–​47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neff, Severine. 2006. “Schenker, Schoenberg, and Goethe: Visions of the Organic Artwork.” In Schenker-​Traditionen: Eine Wiener Schule der Musiktheorie und ihre internationale Verbreitung. Edited by Martin Eybl and Evelyn Fink-​Mennel, 29–​50. Vienna: Böhlau. Newcomb, Anthony. 1984a. “Once More ‘Between Absolute and Program Music’: Schumann’s Second Symphony.” 19th-​Century Music 7: 233–​50. —​—​—​. 1984b. “Sound and Feeling.” Critical Inquiry 10, no. 4: 614–​43. Nottebohm, Gustav. 1887. “Ein Skizzenbuch aus den Jahren 1815 und 1816.” In Zweite Beethoveniana: Nachgelassene Aufsätze, 321–​48. Leipzig: C.F. Peters. Parkhurst, Bryan J. 2017. “Formal Arguments and Symbolic Gestures: Thoughts on Langer and Adorno, with a Postscript on Marxism.” Theory and Practice 42: 161–​97. Pomeroy, Boyd. 2018. “Debussy’s G♯/​A♭ Complex: The Adventures of a Pitch-​Class from the Suite bergamasque to the Douze études.” In Debussy’s Resonance. Edited by François deMédicis and Steven Huebner, 435–​ 75. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. Reynolds, Christopher Alan. 2003. Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-​Century Music . Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rings, Steven. 2007. “Perspectives on Tonality and Transformation in Schubert’s Impromptu in E♭, D. 899, no. 2.” Journal of Schenkerian Studies 2: 33–​63. Rosen, Charles. 1995. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. —​—​—​. 1997. The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. Expanded edition. New York: W. W. Norton. Rothstein, William. 2000. “Chopin and the B-​ major Complex: A Study in the Psychology of Composition.” Ostinato Rigore 15: 149–​72. Rushton, Julian. 2019. “Berlioz, Faust, and the Gothic.” In The Oxford Handbook of Faust in Music. Edited by Lorna Fitzsimmons and Charles McKnight, 65–​86. New York: Oxford University Press. Salzer, Felix. 1928. “Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert.” Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 15: 86–​125. Translated by Su Yin Mak in “Felix Salzer’s ‘Sonata Form in Franz

The E-flat/B Complex in Nineteenth-Century Music  143 Schubert’ (1928): An English Translation and Edition with Critical Commentary.” Theory and Practice 40 (2015): 1–​121. Samson, Jim. 1996. “Chopin’s Alternatives to Monotonality: A Historical Perspective.” In The Second Practice of Nineteenth-​Century Tonality. Edited by William Kinderman and Harald Krebs, 34–​44. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. —​—​—​2000. “The Practice of Early-​Nineteenth-​Century Pianism.” In The Musical Work: Reality or Invention? Edited by Michael Talbot, 110–​27. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Schoenberg, Arnold. 1947. “Brahms the Progressive.” In Style and Idea: The Writings of Arnold Schoenberg . Edited by Leonard Stein. Translated by Leo Black, 398–​441. New York: St. Martin’s Press. —​—​—​. 1967. Fundamentals of Musical Composition. Edited by Gerald Strang and Leonard Stein. London: Faber and Faber. Schumann, Robert. 1838. Review of Schubert’s Impromptus, D. 935. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 9: 192–​93. Sisman, Elaine. 2000. “Memory and Invention at the Threshold of Beethoven’s Late Style.” In Beethoven and His World. Edited by Scott Burnham and Michael P. Steinberg, 51–​87. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Smith, Peter H. 2005. Expressive Forms in Brahms’s Instrumental Music: Structure and Meaning in His Werther Quartet. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. —​—​—​. 2009. “Harmonies Heard from Afar: Tonal Pairing, Formal Design, and Cyclical Integration in Schumann’s A-​minor Violin Sonata, op. 105.” Theory and Practice 34: 47–​80. —​—​—​. 2011. “Associative Harmony, Tonal Pairing, and Middleground Structure in Schumann’s Sonata Expositions: The Role of the Mediant in the First Movements of the Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet, and ‘Rhenish’ Symphony.” In Rethinking Schumann. Edited by Roe-​Min Kok and Laura Tunbridge, 235–​64. New York: Oxford University Press. Solomon, Maynard. 1991. ‘‘Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: The Sense of an Ending.” Critical Inquiry 17, no. 2: 289–​305. Steblin, Rita. 1996. A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. Suurpää, Lauri. 2005. “The Undivided Ursatz and the Omission of the Tonic Stufe at the Beginning of the Recapitulation.” Journal of Schenkerian Studies 1: 66–​91. —​—​—​. 2014. Death in Winterreise: Musico-​Poetic Associations in Schubert’s Song Cycle. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Taruskin, Richard. 2010a. “Virtuosos: Paganini and Liszt.” In The Oxford History of Western Music: Music in the Nineteenth Century, 251–​88. New York: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​ 2010b. The Oxford History of Western Music: Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. Taylor, Benedict. 2011. Mendelssohn, Time and Memory: The Romantic Conception of Cyclic Form . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —​—​—​. 2016. The Melody of Time: Music and Temporality in the Romantic Era. New York: Oxford University Press. —​ —​ —​ . 2017. “Absent Subjects and Empty Centers: Eichendorff’s Romantic Phantasmagoria and Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39.” 19th-​Century Music 40, no. 3: 201–​22.

144  Jeffrey Swinkin and Hayley Grigg Todd, R. Larry. 1994. “On Quotation in Schumann’s Music.” In Schumann and His World. Edited by R. Larry Todd, 80–​112. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tunbridge, Laura. 2007. Schumann’s Late Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tusa, Michael C. 1993. “Beethoven’s ‘C-​Minor Mood’: Some Thoughts on the Structural Implications of Key Choice.” Beethoven Forum 2. Edited by Lewis Lockwood and James Webster, 1–​27. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Walker, Alan. 1989. Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848–​ 1861. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Wintle, Christopher. 1987. “ ‘The Sceptred Pall’: Brahms’s Progressive Harmony.” In Brahms 2: Biographical, Documentary and Analytical Studies. Edited by Michael Musgrave, 197–​222. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Youens, Susan. 1991. Retracing a Winter’s Journey: Schubert’s “Winterreise.” Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Part II

Compositional Constraints and Compositional Process

4 Take It Away How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms Alan Gosman

Cherubino, in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro talks of love, and then talks of love: when waking, when dreaming, to the water, shadows, mountains, fountains, echoes, air, and winds. For the Act I aria, “Non so più,” Mozart emphasizes Cherubino’s ability to go on and on about love by composing an astonishingly long 50-​measure coda that nearly matches the length of the basic ternary form that precedes it. Cherubino concludes by saying that even if there is no one to listen to him, he will keep talking of love to himself. By Act II, Cherubino’s fervor and his irresistible impulse to talk endlessly about love is well established. In this context, it is worth considering how Mozart corrals Cherubino into ending his theme in the arietta “Voi che sapete.” Example 4.1 shows that a four-​bar antecedent is followed by a continuation broken into two two-​bar segments, and then two one-​bar segments, and then a cadence. William Caplin labels such shortening of units, “fragmentations,” and remarks that they “permit the theme to acquire momentum and drive” (1998, 41). And while this fragmentation from 4 to 2 to 1 provides forward momentum, like many other instances of fragmentation, it paradoxically also contains the seeds for its theme’s conclusion, because the shortening segments propel the theme forward to a cadence. The musical units are so small at a certain point that further division is functionally impractical. The cadential closure responds to the extinguished possibility of further shortened continuation possibilities. In some ways, rondos are the Cherubino of tonal forms: they are paradigmatically simple, they are defined by repetition that can suggest a need to keep going, and they pose the danger of having their extreme repetitiveness turn off the listeners that they hope to attract. The “take it away” from this chapter’s title refers to the excitement, momentum, and complexity that composers can create by “taking away” material from potentially lengthy repetitions. And as in Cherubino’s “Voi che sapete,” the musical sparks that are lit by taking away material can also ignite a process that compels a rondo to end. Fragmentation in themes, such as that which leads Cherubino’s theme to its conclusion, is a familiar example of reductive processes in music.1 However, other reductive possibilities can be found in rondos that similarly fulfill the DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-8

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Example 4.1 Mozart—​“Voi che sapete” from Le Nozze di Figaro, K. 492, mm. 9–​20

dual function of energizing a musical form and applying the brakes that force a musical unit to its conclusion. This chapter will consider examples of reduction that are unlike fragmentation within a theme, in that the reduction refers to nonadjacent sections, such as successive refrains or successive couplets. Jonathan Guez (2018), in an article focusing on sonata-​form movements, encourages attention to the variety of alterations within nonadjacent sections that repeat material, writing, “my injunction to the reader is to be sensitive

How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms  149 to all those pushes and pulls that are wrought by thematic alterations in recapitulations, A′ sections, poetic and rondo refrains, and other forms with ‘built-​in’ thematic repetitions.”2 Example 4.2a provides Refrain 1 of the third movement of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata op. 12, No. 3. The movement is in sonata-​rondo form, so the music from this lengthy first refrain, which is the exposition’s first theme group, might be expected to be repeated in its entirety for Refrain 2 (between the exposition and development sections), at Refrain 3 (the recapitulation’s first

Example 4.2  Beethoven, Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 12, No. 3, mvt. 3, Refrain Sections Example 4.2a Refrain 1, mm. 1–​39 (3 PACs in HK)

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Example 4.2b Beethoven, Op. 12, No. 3, Refrain 2, mm. 79–​94 (2 PACs)

Example 4.2c Beethoven, Op. 12, No. 3, Refrain 3, mm. 163–​70 (1 PAC)

Example 4.2d Beethoven, Op. 12, No. 3, Refrain 4, First Four Bars, mm. 226–​29

theme group), and to some extent at the coda. Refrain 1 is a rounded binary. The opening eight-​bar theme is heard first in the piano, then again with the violin playing the melody, and, following the middle b section, it recurs with both instruments playing the melody together in octaves starting at measure 32. If the complete Refrain 1 were repeated for Refrains 2 and 3, the opening eight-​bar hybrid theme, which is heard these three times over Refrain 1, would be heard nine times over three refrains. And then there is the potential for even

How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms  151 more repetition of the theme in Refrain 4 (the coda). Excessive repetition risks creating stagnancy and dragging down the movement. Beethoven avoids this hazard by taking advantage of the first refrain’s cadential design. All three appearances of Refrain 1’s opening theme, at measures 1, 9, and 32, close with a perfect authentic cadence (PAC) in the home key of E-​flat major. The repetition of this cadence in E-​flat provides Beethoven with ready-​made stopping points for the upcoming refrains. Beethoven shortens Refrains 2 and 3 by concluding with successively earlier stopping points.3 Example 4.2b shows Refrain 2, which omits Refrain 1’s b and a′ sections and ends with the second of Refrain 1’s three PACs. Beethoven shortens Refrain 3, which in this sonata-​rondo movement also corresponds to the recapitulation, by ending with the first of these PACs, as shown in Example 4.2c. The material that follows this PAC in m. 170 is still based on sections of Refrain 1, but because it is no longer centered in the key of E-​flat, these bars are part of the transition, and no longer fall within the refrain. With this cadential retreat, the refrains grow progressively shorter, from 39 bars for the first, to 16 bars for the second, to only 8 bars for the third. It may seem that this progression has run its course. It is hard to imagine Refrain 4 repeating less than eight bars of the original refrain. It is also not obvious how Beethoven can eliminate the sole PAC preserved in Refrain 3. But Example 4.2d shows that Beethoven ingeniously crafts the final refrain out of just three bars of the opening theme. The fugato subject begins with mm. 5–​7 of Refrain 1 in the piano part; a mere three bars fuel the final refrain, with the third of these bars embellished and stretched out over mm. 228–​29. And a significant difference between this short, repurposed selection and the earlier refrains is that these opening few bars of Refrain 4 salvage none of the perfect authentic cadences found in Refrain 1. Beethoven’s incremental cutting from refrain to refrain, paired with his subtraction of perfect authentic cadences from three, to two, to one, and finally down to zero, provides a reductive trajectory to the movement. Like the shortening of units in Cherubino’s phrase, the reductive process from refrain to refrain propels the music forwards. And like the conclusion of Cherubino’s theme, Beethoven’s rondo movement is left with no further options once the fragments have been whittled down to the point that they would be basically unusable if made any smaller. Reducing material does not extinguish the vitality of later refrains. Rather, it marvelously energizes them by opening up new creative spaces. Following the truncated Refrain 3, some of the omitted material energizes Couplet 3’s transition. And even though Refrain 4 only preserves three bars of the opening refrain, these bars are the basis of a stunning fugal passage and a final section that goes on for 53 measures—​far longer than any of the previous refrains. Beethoven does more with less, ultimately overcoming the rondo’s impulse to keep repeating material and leading the movement towards its conclusion. The sketches for the Funeral March from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony provide a Beethoven’s eye view of how taking material away can energize a

152  Alan Gosman movement. Beethoven’s sketches for this movement are all found in his Eroica Sketchbook, and they all treat this movement as a five-​part rondo (Lockwood and Gosman 2013). Example 4.3 provides a transcription of an early draft of the opening C minor Refrain 1 section.4 As in the violin sonata’s Finale, excessive repetition of the refrain presents a potential trap for this movement. Both works have a refrain in rounded binary form, with perfect authentic cadences in the home key closing the a section and its repeat (positioned in the Eroica Symphony sketch on the top staff of Example 4.3) and the a′ section (staff 3 of Example 4.3). In the symphony this closure is also reinforced at the end with a codetta (staff 4). Counting the sketch’s repeats, the Funeral March’s refrain sketch presents a remarkable five PACs in the home key, at the end of a, the repeat of a, a′, the repeat of a′, and the codetta. Given Beethoven’s approach to the Finale of op. 12, no. 3, it is reasonable for us to predict that his presentation of Refrain 2 in the sketch will lack some of the Refrain 1 material. This proves to be true. However, there is a striking difference between how the successive cuts in the violin sonata and the symphony play out. In the violin sonata, Beethoven employs incremental cutting across Refrains 1, 2, 3, and 4. In the Funeral March, there is also incremental cutting, but it is not effectively captured in a synchronic approach to the final version of the movement. The Funeral March’s incremental cutting does not neatly unfold over the consecutive measures of the final score. The familiar activities of listening to the symphony, or studying the score, do not reveal the march’s reductive processes. Instead, a recognition of the incremental cutting in the Funeral March relies on a diachronic approach. The shortening is confined to a single section—​Refrain 2. And it exists, by comparison, within

Example 4.3 Sketch for Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, II, Refrain 1, Eroica Sketchbook, page 43, st. 10–​14; 5 PACs in C minor (Counting Repeats)

How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms  153 the hidden, comparatively nonactualized space of Beethoven’s numerous sketches for Refrain 2. Examples 4.4a, 4.4b, and 4.4c arrange three of Beethoven’s sketches for Refrain 2. These sketches can all be identified as Refrain 2 because each sketch concludes with the first bars of the fugal Couplet 2. The example formats each sketch so that one of Refrain 2’s parts (a, b, a’, or codetta) is presented on each system. Labels above each system identify the part of the rounded binary included on the line. The last system of each sketch, as arranged here, concludes with the first bars of the fugal Couplet 2. Interestingly, this fugal section begins in C minor for all three of these sketches, whereas in the final version it begins in F minor. Example 4.4a provides Beethoven’s second sketch for Refrain 2. All parts of the first Refrain are present, including the codetta. However, because the repeats are no longer indicated, this refrain has three rather than five PACs in C minor. These are at the end of the a section (system 1), the a′ section (system 3), and at the end of the codetta, which is elided with Couplet 2 (in system 4). The next sketch, transcribed in Example 4.4b, captures how Beethoven trims Refrain 2 by ending it one PAC earlier. The a′ section, on the third staff of the example, does not lead to the codetta. Instead, it cadences directly into the C minor fugue. This sketch has only two PACs in C minor. But when Beethoven reviewed the sketch shown in Example 4.4b, he decided that it was still too long. Example 4.4c shows that, rather than rewriting the entire sketch, he inserts two X markers to indicate that the music should cut from the initial

Example 4.4       Sketches for Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, II, Refrain 2 and Entry of Fugue (Couplet 2), Eroica Sketchbook Example 4.4a Sketch Version 2; 3 PACs in C minor because No Repeats, page 53, st. 2–​6

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Example 4.4b Sketch Version 3, page 50 (Written after page 53), st. 6–​10; 2 PACs in C minor

Example 4.4c Sketch Version 3 with Edits, page 50, st. 6–​7, st. 10b; 1 PAC in C minor

a section (the first X marker) to the Couplet 2 fugue (the second X marker), leaving the refrain with just a single PAC in C. This section shortening is familiar from the violin sonata Finale. Like there, Beethoven shortens a section of the Funeral March by taking away one home-​key PAC at a time. But the shortening in these two works energizes the movement in very different manners. In the sonata, each step of the process is heard by the listener and performer. However, in the Funeral March, the incremental cutting is inaudible to the listener. It is hidden within the Eroica Symphony’s compositional history. Hunt (2014) asks how much of the second refrain must be repeated if the movement is to continue being heard as a rondo or sonata-​rondo. Hunt identifies a continuum of truncated types of second refrains, ranging from “minimal truncation” to an “A section omitted or not in I” (2014, 44). The chart in Example 4.5 lays out Hunt’s categories. In addition, I have appended two new categories to the left side of the chart, labelled “Same as Refrain 1” and “Repeats Removed.” Beethoven’s Eroica sketches reproduced in Example 4.4 roughly fit into several of these categories, and show Beethoven reimagining Refrain 2 in ways that advance the section along the chart’s continuum from left to right. He first removes the repeats (Example 4.4a), next he omits the

How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms  155

Example 4.5 Op. 12, III and Op. 55, II Considered along Graham Hunt’s Continuum of Truncated Types of Second Refrains (With the Addition of Two New Categories for the First Columns)

Example 4.6 Final Version of Passage, Measures 105–​16; 0 PACs in C minor

codetta (Example 4.4b), and then he omits the b and a’ sections (Example 4.4c). At this point, the movement’s form is still readily heard as a rondo. But the final, published version of this passage presents a radically new conception of the passage that is not found in the sketchbook and that pushes the section one column further to the right on Example 4.5. This final version’s melody, heard directly before the fugal section, is reproduced in Example 4.6. Although it takes one more bar to get to the fugal section than does the sketch shown in Example 4.4c, the final version actually employs the most extreme deletion yet. In the final version, Beethoven rejects the only remaining PAC in the home key of C and modulates to F minor for the fugue. With this, the section moves one box further to the right on Example 4.5.

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Example 4.7 Formal Analysis of Op. 55, II

Taking away this C minor cadence entirely has radical formal consequences, as shown in Example 4.7. The wayward, harmonically open a section from mm. 105–​14 is no longer heard as closing Refrain 2 as was possible with the Example 4.4 sketches. Instead, mm. 105–​14 can be heard as connecting to the material at m. 173. With Refrain 2 still open, the section beginning at m. 173 can no longer stand alone as Refrain 3. Rather, mm. 105–​14 present Refrain 2’s a section, and the material starting at measure 173 now provides the expected repetition of the opening eight-​bar theme, along with the b and a′ sections and codetta. The five-​part rondo form that relies on three distinct refrains has become a ternary form. Material that was initially conceived of as Refrain 2 and Refrain 3 now forms only a single A′ section. Hence, measures 105–​ 209 are no longer a Couplet 2, but now function as an interpolated fugue and retransition within an expansive A′ section. The process of “taking away” energizes and transforms Beethoven’s original conception of a straightforward five-​part rondo into a complex ternary form. As in Cherubino’s aria and the op. 12 Finale, the process of fragmentation in Refrain 2 propels the work forwards, but in the case of the Eroica Symphony’s Marcia funebre, the reduction propels the composing process. We find the same dynamic process that we can associate with material, sounding music, now energizing the “compositional time” that lies unheard beneath the surface of the Marcia funebre. This compositional path supports an altered formal understanding of the movement. Refrain 2, which through the sketches can be heard as the middle section of a rondo, is transformed in the final version to the A′ section of a ternary. The compositional history bears witness to the demise of Beethoven’s original rondo conception. And, as happens in the op. 12 Finale, the absence of a home-​key PAC opens up and energizes the final section, leading to a richly complex conclusion. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that in both the violin sonata and the symphony, the disappearance of the PACs previously associated with the refrain initiates a fugal section. Even if the Funeral March is heard in ternary form, the sketches suggest that it is wise not to assume that the ternary form was obvious to Beethoven from the start. The story told by the sketches argues against labelling the movement as only a ternary label with a bonus fugue inserted into the A′ section. It is not

How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms  157 enough to rest content with highlighting an “added section.” It is more faithful to the compositional genesis of the work to hear the movement’s form from the perspective of what is lost and what is salvaged in its stead. Whatever sense we have of a ternary form derives from the repetition inherent in the rondo form with which Beethoven began. When the second refrain dissolves by leading off to a new key, the movement provides veiled remembrances of how Refrain 2 would have proceeded if it had simply repeated Refrain 1. The fugue subject that displaces the b section and a′ section, shown in Example 4.6 at m. 114, is built out of elements of both missing parts. The fugue’s first few notes are the inversion of the missing b section (see Example 4.4a or 4b, System 2), and the fugue’s starting key of F minor is the same as the missing a′ section (see Example 4.4a or 4b, System 3). In these ways, the fugue implicitly acknowledges the missing Refrain 2 section and the lost rondo form. There is an enormous gulf between the simplicity of Beethoven’s initial rondo conception and the complexity of Beethoven’s final ternary conception. The initial rondo includes the near exact return of Refrain 1 as Refrain 2, whereas the A’ section of the ternary faces challenges to the memory of the opening A section as well as to finding closure in the home key. This remarkable compositional evolution, revealed by an examination of the sketches, allows for hearing the simultaneous presence and absence of rondo form, which seems eminently suited to the themes of loss, remembrance, and coping that are essential to any Marcia funebre. Another example of reductive principles in a rondo is in the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 101, the “Clock.” This is a five-​part rondo in G major. The refrain is again a rounded binary, with the a-​ and a′ sections ending with perfect authentic cadences in the home key. Compared to Beethoven’s penchant for reduction in the two previous examples, Haydn’s persistence in presenting so much of Refrain 1 for Refrain 2 and Refrain 3 may come as a surprise. The opening refrain is 34 bars long, and the difference in length between successive refrains only happens because Refrain 1 has repeat signs and Refrains 2 and 3 present the entire rounded binary without repeats. Just comparing the entrances of Refrain 1 and 2 versus Refrain 3 makes clear that rather than discussing “taking away,” as with the other pieces, here it is more appropriate to think of the refrain as “taking over.” Refrains 1 and 2 each begin with a piano dynamic, whereas Refrain 3’s melody arrives in measure 112 with a sudden fortissimo in the strings and forte for the other parts. There is no shying away from the theme’s return at this entrance, and it is the first time in the refrains that all parts are playing at once. For that matter, it is the first time in the movement’s refrains that the clarinets, horns, trombones, or timpani participate at all. The reductive processes that were present in Beethoven’s refrains are not found here. Perhaps because the refrains are so persistently present, the other sections of the movement are constrained and enjoy less and less opportunity to assert their own space and independence. The “take it away” effect in this

158  Alan Gosman movement develops within the sections that alternate with the refrains—​ Couplet 1, Couplet 2, and a closing codetta. These couplets and the codetta are reproduced in Examples 4.8a, 4.8b, and 4.8c, respectively. Couplet 1 in Example 4.8a is the only one of these sections that provides the expected tonal and thematic contrast to the refrain. The section’s transition establishes a key other than the home key G. A sentence in B-​flat major follows, leading to a PAC, and this is followed by a retransition to prepare for Refrain

Example 4.8  Haydn, Symphony No. 101, II, Couplets (Violin and Cello/​Bass Parts) Example 4.8a Couplet 1, mm. 34–​62 (29 Bars; Transition +​Sentence Ending with PAC +​Retransition Ending with HC)

How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms  159

Example 4.8b Couplet 2, mm. 97–​110 (14 Bars; Sentential Phrase Ending with HC/​ Retransition Ending with HC)

Example 4.8c Codetta, mm. 144–​50 (7 Bars; No Theme Type, No Cadence)

2. The transition and retransition insulate the Bb major theme. As is typical in a couplet, this theme establishes its own identity and independence from the refrain. Those qualities are supported by the new key and by the section having its own theme type—​a sentence. Couplet 2, on the other hand, does not achieve this degree of independence. Couplet 2 is reproduced in Example 4.8b. Following the bar of rest in m. 97, the refrain’s accompaniment irrepressibly returns in m. 98. But this couplet’s dependence on the refrain does not end with its accompaniment. In mm. 99–​ 100, the basic idea’s melody also relies on that of the refrain, now heard in E-​ flat major. Haydn relinquishes many chances to establish Couplet 2’s identity as distinct from the refrain’s identity. And Couplet 2’s theme, while most closely resembling a sentence, does not completely satisfy the expectations for this theme type, as it does not repeat the basic idea before breaking down into the fragments that establish the continuation. Even the achievement of a new key is undermined when, in measure 105, the bass’s E-​flat supports an augmented sixth chord leading to a half cadence in G. The whole section avoids the usual “otherness” of a couplet. And by its close, the couplet’s failure to assert independence makes its bars seem equally, or more representative of a retransition section, preparing the next refrain by moving from the key of E-​flat to the dominant chord of the home key. The movement’s rondo form does not require a section to be added after Refrain 3’s 34 bars, but Haydn adds a codetta beginning in m. 144, shown in

160  Alan Gosman Example 4.8c. Here, the extra material no longer purports to be particularly distinct from, or outside the refrain. The codetta is formally part of Refrain 3, the key remains G major, and the addition prolongs the tonic. In this movement, the “taking away” that occurs outside the refrains has multiple manifestations. Couplet 1 is 29 bars. Couplet 2 is about half that, at 14 bars. And the codetta is half of that. Cadentially, Couplet 1 has a PAC and HC; Couplet 2 has only a HC; and the codetta has no cadences. Haydn’s subtraction of one cadence per non-​refrain section progressively stifles the ability of these section to stand alone as separate from the refrains. But Haydn does more than limit the number of cadential endings in successive non-​refrain sections. He also undermines the opening of each theme. Even in Couplet 1, the basic idea of the sentence in measures 40–​41 does not establish as strong a starting point as it might. The Bb harmony’s arrival is weakened because it arrives, not from a strong V chord, but from a descending fifth progression that had begun earlier, in the transition. Furthermore, the basic ideas that begin at m. 40 sound like they would be at least as comfortable as part of a sentence’s continuation section than as basic ideas initiating a theme. In this hearing, the section that starts at m. 40 could alternatively be heard as a compound sentence that is missing the presentation of any compound basic ideas and instead commences with the continuation bars that would typically signal the middle of the theme. While Couplet 1 can at least be heard as having two weakened basic ideas, Couplet 2, as previously discussed, presents only one basic idea, also weakened to the point that the section has an identity crisis. The basic idea, lifted from the refrain, is not repeated, and instead goes to a continuation and half cadence in the key of G. As a result, the passage sounds less like a complete couplet theme and more like a transition section back to the refrain. Finally, the codetta, beginning in measure 98, makes no pretense of introducing a basic idea or of establishing any sort of beginning. The post-​cadential area simply confirms the arrival of the tonic. The thematic independence from the refrain has diminished throughout the movement, and following this codetta, the increasingly weak contrasting sections have run their course. As the Refrain’s material thwarts the independence of sections that could have had contrasting material, the refrain also effectively silences itself. The shortening couplet sections of Example 4.8 lose their independence, but they have the final word on when and why the music ends. A form that relies on alternating the refrain with other sections can’t continue once the other sections disappear. The centrality and extent of repetition in rondos provide an opportunity to explore not just how a piece goes on and on but also how a piece reaches its conclusion. Incrementally taking away repeated material and structural features can energize and propel a form toward its end. This reductive energy can develop over the course of a piece, as in the finale refrains of Beethoven’s op. 12, No. 3 and the second movement couplets of Haydn’s Symphony No. 101. It also can organize the compositional process, as in Beethoven’s Marcia

How Shortened and Missing Sections Energize Rondo Forms  161 funebre from the Eroica Symphony. Awareness of this reductive route can enrich the understanding of a movement’s form. And the musical energy created by “taking it away” can contribute to listeners desiring to hear a rondo again, like those in the audience at the premiere of the “Clock” Symphony, who demanded an encore of the second movement. Notes 1 Áine Heneghen, in her article “Liquidation and Its Origins,” provides a fascinating historical perspective on reductive properties as developed by Schoenberg, particularly in Schoenberg’s discussion of a single musical section such as the b section of a rounded binary (2019, 71–​102). 2 Refrains are on this list because they are based on repeated material. Couplets, however, are not defined by this repetition, so they are not included in Jonathan Guez’s list. 3 Joan Huguet (2015, 24–​ 34) establishes sonata-​ rondo refrain characteristics in Beethoven’s early sonata-​rondo finales. Her chart on p. 26 of the differences between Refrain 1 and later refrains shows that, among these works, the finale of op. 12, No. 3, is unique in having a Refrain 2 that she labels “abridged.” It is more common to find abridged refrains later in these movements. 4 Transcriptions are based on Lockwood and Gosman (2013).

Bibliography Caplin, William E. 1998. Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. New York: Oxford University Press. Galand, Joel. 1995. “Form, Genre, and Style in the Eighteenth-​Century Rondo.” Music Theory Spectrum 17, no. 1: 27–​52. Guez, Jonathan. 2018. “The ‘Mono-​ Operational Recapitulation in Movements by Beethoven and Schubert.” Music Theory Spectrum 40: 227–​47. Heneghan, Áine. 2019. “Liquidation and Its Origins.” Journal of Music Theory 63, no. 1: 71–​102. Huguet, Joan. 2015. “Formal Functions and Voice-​Leading Structures in Beethoven’s Early Sonata-​Rondo Finales.” PhD Diss., Eastman School of Music. Hunt, Graham. 2014. “‘How Much Is Enough?’ Formal and Structural Ramifications of the Abbreviated Second A Section in Rondo Finales from Haydn to Brahms.” Journal of Schenkerian Studies 8: 5–​50. Lockwood, Lewis and Alan Gosman. 2013. Beethoven’s “Eroica” Sketchbook: A Critical Edition. 2 volumes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

5 “All-​Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint Bach’s Fugue in G minor from Book 2 of The Well-​Tempered Clavier Eric Wen Invertible counterpoint is the process by which multiple distinct musical ideas are expressed concurrently as lines that sound well together even when interchanged. With two voices, this is known as “double counterpoint”; where more voices are involved, we say “triple counterpoint,” “quadruple counterpoint,” etc. Although inversion at the octave offers the most natural circumstance for invertible counterpoint, other intervallic transpositions are also possible. It was more than 450 years ago, in 1558, that the Renaissance composer and theorist Gioseffo Zarlino pointed out that inversions at the intervals of the tenth and twelfth were especially suited to invertible counterpoint, being “so ingeniously designed that … a repetition will produce a harmony different from that first heard in the same two parts.”1 The combinations of the subject and countersubject from J.S. Bach’s G-​ minor Fugue from Book 2 of The Well-​Tempered Clavier offer clear examples of double counterpoint at the octave, twelfth, and tenth. Example 5.1 highlights the differences among these three forms of invertible counterpoint when compared to the original combination of the two themes. The numbers between the staves designate the intervals between the parts. Invertible counterpoint at the octave is the most common and most straightforward formulation. Octaves become unisons, and the imperfect consonances of the third and sixth are reversed. As for the dissonant intervals, seconds become sevenths and vice versa. Care must be taken, however, when the perfect consonance of the fifth is inverted into the fourth, which can be either consonant or dissonant depending on context. In inversion at the twelfth, the fifth becomes an octave, but the fourth becomes a dissonant ninth. One of the virtues of invertible counterpoint at the twelfth is that thirds invert to tenths, retaining the same intervallic distance but with an alteration of its quality from major to minor or vice versa. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of invertible counterpoint at the twelfth is its inversion of the consonant sixth into a dissonant seventh. In invertible counterpoint at the tenth, the intervals of the seventh and ninth remain dissonant but become altered to a fourth and second. By contrast, the perfect fifth and octave now invert into the imperfect consonances of the sixth DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-9

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Example 5.1 Invertible Counterpoint in G-​minor Fugue

and third. The most idiosyncratic aspect of invertible counterpoint at the tenth is the alteration of the perfect fifth into the imperfect consonance of the sixth and vice versa. Bach’s G-​minor Fugue presents an unusually virtuosic display of invertible counterpoint. Philipp Spitta cites this fugue as one of five in Book 2 that are “completely unsurpassed in the genre” (in ihrer Gattung vollends sind sie unerreicht),2 and Donald Francis Tovey describes its use of double counterpoint succinctly as “all-​comprehending.”3 This paper will examine Bach’s G-​minor Fugue from Book 2 of The Well-​Tempered Clavier in close detail. In addition to tracing the various formulations of invertible counterpoint, it will also offer voice-​leading graphs of the individual entries—​and ultimately of the fugue as a whole—​using the analytical techniques developed by Heinrich Schenker.4 5.1  Fugue Subject and Countersubject The regular rhythm and the unrelenting quality of its seven repeated notes beginning in m. 4 gives the subject of Bach’s G-​ minor Fugue an

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Example 5.2 Harmonization of N Figure in Fugue Subject

Example 5.3 Possible Analysis of Fugue Subject

uncompromising and almost severe character.5 The subject begins on the fifth scale degree, D, and is decorated by its upper neighbor E♭. Upon first hearing, one might read the harmonic implication of the subject’s opening three bars as given in Example 5.2, with the neighboring 5̂ –6̂ –5̂ motion essentially prolonging the tonic. In this reading of a prolonged tonic over the first three bars, the descending third from D to B-​flat that follows can be understood as a passing 4̂ over a dominant-​seventh harmony that arrives on 5̂ over a return of the tonic. As might be expected with a subject that begins on 5̂ , the answer is tonal, commencing on scale degree 1̂ instead of 2̂ . Thereafter, the answer transposes the remaining notes of the fugue theme up a perfect fifth. This alteration of the first note in the answer changes the harmonic meaning of the fugue theme. Example 5.4 shows how the initial note of the subject D4 (5̂ ) is embellished through a neighbor-​note motion up to E♮4 (6̂ ). In the answer, instead of a stepwise motion from the first note to the downbeat of the follow bar, we now encounter a chordal skip up a third from G4 (1^ ) to B♭4 (3̂ ). Furthermore, the answer ends on F♮4 (♮7̂ ), a note that does not belong to tonic harmony, but represents 3̂ in D minor. Music students are often taught that the subject presents the fugue theme in the tonic, whereas the answer casts it up a fifth in the key of the dominant. While it is true that the answer usually transposes the subject up a fifth, it would be more accurate to say that the subject defines the key of the tonic and the answer closes in the dominant. This is especially true for tonal answers that are intended to continue the initial tonic harmony at the entry of the answer.

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Example 5.4 Subject vs Answer

Example 5.5 Prolongation of G minor (Bars 5–​6)

Example 5.6a Descending Fifths in Countersubject

Example 5.6b Origin of Dotted Rhythm

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Example 5.7 Revised Analysis of Fugue Subject

Example 5.5 shows how the beginning of the answer extends the tonic harmony established by the subject. Picking up on the two sixteenth notes that embellish the suspension that resolves on the subject’s final note, the countersubject enters in sixteenth notes. The second bar of the countersubject initiates a repeated pattern of descending fifth skips in eighth notes followed by rising stepwise scales in sixteenth notes over mm. 6 and 7. In m. 8, at the arrival of the repeated eighth notes in the answer, this pattern ends, but the descending fifth skip in the countersubject is preserved, now filled out by step (Example 5.6a). The figuration of the even sixteenth notes against the repeated notes of the subject implies a dotted rhythm which will be exploited later in the fugue (Example 5.6b). The counterpoint between the subject and its countersubject results in a succession of descending sixths on the downbeats of bars 6–​8. These parallel sixths articulate a regular pattern, implying a sequence leading from the second through fourth bars. Following the implication of Bach’s countersubject, we now need to reconsider the tonal meaning of the subject itself. As shown in Example 5.7, the E♭4 in bar 2 no longer represents an upper neighbor-​note that connects the subject’s opening D4 to the one on the downbeat of bar 3. Instead, E♭4 leads to the C4 in bar 4, with D4 serving as a passing tone between them. 5.2  Overall Plan of the G-​minor Fugue Having looked at the subject and its distinctive countersubject, let us now trace how they appear throughout the G-​minor Fugue. Example 5.8 presents a schematic layout of the different fugal entries, labelled with the letters “S” and “A,” designating the subject and answer, respectively, along with “CS” for the countersubject. As shown on the chart, the entrances occur very regularly in uninterrupted four-​bar units throughout the opening exposition. Tovey notes that this is a “rare phenomenon in Bach … generally indicating some unusual massiveness of design to be revealed later.”6 The final entry in the exposition is cast in double counterpoint at the octave, and the two other kinds of invertible

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Example 5.8 Table of Fugal Entries

168  Eric Wen counterpoint—​at the twelfth and tenth—​occur in the middle group of entries, at bars 28 and 36, respectively. Statements of the subject in parallel thirds (bars 45) and sixths (bars 51) above the countersubject appear between the third and fourth episodes. And these are followed at bar 59 with another striking occurrence of invertible counterpoint in which both the subject and countersubject are stated in parallel thirds. An incomplete occurrence of invertible counterpoint begins in bar 67, but this is interrupted two bars later by a restatement now involving all four voices, with the subject and countersubject alternating down from soprano to the bass voice. In bar 79 of the coda, a varied statement of the subject—​with the upbeats altered but retaining the rhythm—​appears in the bass, with a fragmentary appearance of the countersubject, now shifted to enter a measure later but beginning on the first instead of second beat and stated in parallel thirds. Apart from the two occurrences of the answer in the exposition, only one other appearance of the answer occurs in the entire fugue. This is the only appearance of the fugue theme that modulates since all other statements of the subject begin and end in the same key. In the course of this paper, we will examine the tonal meaning of each entry with its specific combination of subject and countersubject, as well as the influence of any free counterpoint. In addition to showing how the various entries relate to one another, this paper will conclude with an overview of the fugue’s large-​scale tonal structure. 5.3  Fugal Exposition (Bars 1–​17) Having established that the answer closes in the dominant key instead of the tonic, let us now consider the modulation effect from G minor to D minor over bars 1–​9. Example 5.8 presents two vantage points in viewing the tonicization of the dominant. From the perspective of the home key of G minor, the tonal motion leads from I to V. The A-​major seventh chord in between them represents an altered form of the diatonic II7 harmony, with two chromatic inflections: its third is altered from C♮ to C♯, and its fifth is raised up a chromatic semitone from E♭ to E♮ . Alternatively, from the perspective of the dominant key of D minor, the opening G-​minor harmony functions as the IV chord, which leads to V7 before cadencing in I. Although the opening G-​minor tonic harmony initially establishes the home key of the fugue, it also serves as the pivot chord in the answer’s tonicization of the dominant key of D minor. Example 5.9 presents a chordal reduction of the tonicization of the dominant in the statement of the answer over bars 6–​9. Level a shows how the opening tonic serves as the pivot chord, becoming IV in the key of D minor. One inherent voice-​leading problem in the four-​part chordal progression is the parallel fifths between the bass and alto voices in the motion of the first two chords (IV to V7 in D minor). A simple way to eliminate these parallels is to break up the fifths through the insertion of an intervening sixth. As shown in level b, the 5–​6–​5 intervallic succession, deriving from fourth-​species counterpoint, breaks up these parallel fifths. In level c, a root-​position II substitutes

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  169 for the II6, and in level d, a V56 substitutes for the V7, thereby avoiding the augmented second from B♭3 to C♯4 in the tenor voice. Finally, level e shows how a passing tone in the bass connecting the II to the V56 chords results in a II 24. The chordal progression of Example 5.9 forms the basis of the tonicization of the dominant in the two-​part combination of the answer in the alto voice with the countersubject in the tenor over bars 5–​9, presented in Example 5.10a. Example 5.10b focuses on the successive levels in the sequential pattern of bars 6–​8. It originates from a succession of three 35 chords leading from a root-​ position G-​minor chord to a diminished triad over E♮. This represents the chordal succession of IV to II in the forthcoming key of D minor. The analytic graph in Example 5.10c integrates this sequential pattern over bars 6–​8 into the voice-​leading structure of the second entry. The opening G-​minor tonic is reinterpreted as IV in the key of D minor and leads to II before continuing to the V56 that tonicizes the dominant. The third entry of the exposition appears in the soprano voice and appears back in the tonic key. To return to the home key of G minor, the tonicized D-​minor harmony at the beginning of bar 9 is transformed into the V7 of G minor through the chromatic inflection to F to F♯ and the addition of the lowered seventh C♮ in the alto and tenor voices beneath it. As shown in Example 5.11a, the countersubject appears in the alto, with free counterpoint

Example 5.9 Tonicization of V in Answer

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Example 5.10 Analysis of Bars 5–​9

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Example 5.11 Analysis of Bars 9–​13

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Example 5.12 Hemiola in Bars 12–​13

in the tenor voice. Although a succession of descending 35 chords forms the basis of the sequence over bars 10–​12, it is expanded differently from that in bars 6–​8 (Example 5.11b). Example 5.11c presents a voice-​leading graph of this third entry. Unlike the second entry, the II chord appearing at the beginning of bar 12 chord does not last through the entire measure. The arrival of the V56 on the third beat results in a hemiola shown in Example 5.12. The fourth and final entry of the fugal exposition begins in bar 13. With the appearance of the answer in the bass beneath the countersubject in the soprano part, we now encounter the first instance of invertible counterpoint in the G-​minor Fugue. As shown in Example 5.13a, free counterpoint occurs in the middle two parts of the four-​voice texture. The sequential pattern over bars 14–​16 (Example 5.13b) is markedly different from those in the preceding two fugal entries; instead of a succession of 35 chords, we now have parallel 63 chords. The parallel fifths between the upper two voices are mitigated by intervening 5 6 3 chords, and these are further altered to become 3 chords. As with the third entry, a hemiola rhythm occurs over bars 16–​17 (Example 5.14). 5.4  First and Second Episodes and Middle Group of Entries (Bars 17–​40) Having tonicized the dominant at the end of the fugal exposition, the first episode returns to the tonic, and leads to another entry over bars 20–​24 with the subject and countersubject appearing in the lowest two parts (Example 5.15a). Although the combination of the subject and countersubject produces the same intervallic relationships as in the original combination (cf. bars 5–​9), the free counterpoint above them results in dissonant sevenths between the outer voices. Example 5.15b shows how these sevenths in the sequential pattern over bars 21–​23 result from 7–​6 suspensions. Example 5.15c presents the tonal structure of this entry. The IV7 at the beginning of bar 21 leads to a VII6 at the end of bar 23, which is absorbed into the V7 that cadences on I in the following bar. Following the return to G minor in bar 24, a second episode follows, and this leads to another fugal entry at bar 28. Now cast in D minor, this combination occurs in double counterpoint at the twelfth. One striking feature of invertible counterpoint at the twelfth is that consonant sixths invert to dissonant sevenths, and this is exploited in spectacular fashion on the downbeats of

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Example 5.13 Analysis of Bars 13–​17

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Example 5.14 Hemiola in Bars 16–​17

bars 29–​31. Furthermore, the free counterpoint in the lowest part intensifies these dissonant sonorities, creating ninths at the beginning of bars 29 and 30. Example 5.16 presents the diatonic meaning of bars 29–​31. In level a, an 8–​7–​6 motion transforms a IV chord into a II56. Level b shows how the root-​position B-​flat major chord provides consonant support for the passing tone F in the top voice in between the IV and II56. Example 5.17a isolates the D-​minor entry beginning in bar 28. The sequential passage over bars 29–​31 in Example 5.17b is based on the motion from IV to II56 given in Example 5.16, and Example 5.17c shows how this fits within the tonal structure of this D-​minor entry. Following the cadence in D minor in bar 32, we have yet another entry with the subject and countersubject in the two upper parts. Although the subject now appears above the countersubject as it originally did, the intervallic relationship between them is different. As shown in Example 5.18, this derives from invertible counterpoint at the tenth which is reinverted at the octave to create the different intervals. Although this entry appears to continue the D-​minor harmony, with the subject in the soprano voice beginning on F5 (3̂ in D minor), Bach alters the harmonic context from D minor to B-​flat major through a contrapuntal 5–​ 6 motion (Example 5.19). The tonal structure of this B-​flat major entry is presented in Example 5.20. The next entry beginning in bar 36 is the only statement of the answer form of the fugue theme, apart from the ones in the exposition. And like both statements of the answer in the exposition, this modulates to the dominant. Having begun in B-​flat major, it thus tonicizes F major in bar 40. More significantly, this entry exploits double counterpoint at the tenth. Instead of imperfect consonances between the subject and countersubject on the downbeats of bars 37–​39, we now encounter perfect consonances (i.e., fifths and octave). The addition of free counterpoint in the inner voices, however, transforms these downbeats into dissonant 56 chords, as shown in Example 5.21.

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Example 5.15 Analysis of Bars 20–​24

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Example 5.16 Consonant Support for 8–​7–​6 Motion

5.5  Third Episode and Tonicization of C minor (Bars 40–​45) Following the tonicization of F major in bar 40, we come to the third and longest episode in the G-​minor Fugue. It establishes the key of C minor by reinterpreting the 36 chord that concludes the preceding entry. As shown in Example 5.22, this F-​major sonority becomes IV6 with the raised scale degree 6 in the bass and leads to a V56 that establishes C minor. Example 5.23 shows how the C-​minor harmony established at the end of bar 40 is elaborated by a rising motion in parallel tenths in the outer voices over the next two measures. The perfect authentic cadence in C minor that follows in bar 45 is significant; it marks the first structurally important harmonic goal in the G-​minor Fugue. Example 5.24 shows how C minor is established across bars 1–​45. In level a, the opening G-​minor tonic is activated to become the V7 of the key of C minor through the chromatic inflection of its third B♭ to B♮ and the addition of the passing seventh F♮ in the top voice. In level b, the applied dominant is altered to 56 position. This is elaborated further in level c, where the dissonant seventh F is brought into the top voice before resolving to E-​flat over the IV chord before descending to C (4̂ ). In level d, a root-​position D-​ minor chord appears as a passing chord in an arpeggiation down a sixth from G3 to B♮2 in the bass. It also serves to prepare the F4 in the top voice initially as a consonance. Levels e and f show how the D-​minor passing chord is itself tonicized by a subsidiary progression. The B-​flat harmony in level g results from a 5–​6 contrapuntal motion out of D minor, and brings in B♭2 in the bass. This B♭2 is chromatically inflected up to B♮2 supporting the bass of the applied V56 chord that tonicizes C minor. In level h, the insertion of an F-​major neighboring 36 chord serves to break up the direct chromatic succession of B♭2–​B♮2 in the bass. Matching the three fugal entries over bars 28–​40 with the bar numbers, we see how they function within the large-​scale tonicization of the C-​minor subdominant harmony.

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“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  177

Example 5.17 Analysis of Bars 28–​32

178  Eric Wen

Example 5.18  Invertible Counterpoint at the Tenth Reinverted at the Octave (Bars 32–​36)

Example 5.19 5–​6 Motion in Bar 32

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“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  179

Example 5.20 Analysis of Bars 32–​36

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180  Eric Wen

Example 5.21 Analysis of Bars 36–​40

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  181

Example 5.22 Modulation from B-​flat to C minor

Example 5.23 Parallel Tenths in Bars 40–​42

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Example 5.24 Descent from 5̂ to 4̂ (Bars 1–​45)

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  183 5.6  Fourth Episode and Fugal Entries in Parallel Thirds and Sixths (Bars 45–​55) Following the perfect authentic cadence in C minor at bar 45, Bach introduces statements of the fugue subject in parallel thirds and sixths. Although not strictly speaking in invertible counterpoint, these appearances of the fugue subject derive from it. Example 5.25 shows how the fugal statements in parallel thirds originate. The subject is inverted down a thirteenth (i.e., compound sixth) to appear beneath the countersubject, then reinverted back up two octaves and combined with the original statement, resulting in parallel thirds. The tonal meaning of this fugal entry in parallel thirds is presented in Example 5.26. The tonicization of F minor in bar 49 represents a motion to IV in C minor. In the brief two-​measure episode which follows, IV is expanded to II before leading to the V that returns to C minor in bar 51 (Example 5.27). Example 5.28 shows how the statement of the subject in parallel sixths beginning in bar 51 originates indirectly from invertible counterpoint. Here the subject is transposed down a tenth, and then reinverted up two octaves to create the sixths. Example 5.29 presents an analysis of the voice-​leading of this statement in parallel sixths.

Example 5.25 Origin of Thirds in Bars 45–​49

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184  Eric Wen

Example 5.26 Analysis of Bars 45–​49

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  185

Example 5.27 Episode 4

Example 5.28 Origin of Sixths in Bars 51–​55

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186  Eric Wen

Example 5.29 Analysis of Bars 51–​55

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  187 5.7  Fifth Episode and Invertible Counterpoint of Subject and Countersubject in Parallel Thirds (Bars 55–​63) With the return to C minor in bar 56, one might expect a confirmation of this key as shown in Example 5.30.7 However, on the last beat of bar 57, Bach continues unexpectedly to a diminished-​seventh chord over G in 56 position, instead of a C-​minor 36 chord. In fact, the chordal succession he writes over the next two bars is most unusual, consisting of four consecutive seventh chords moving down in parallel motion. The origin of these four seventh chords is given in Example 5.31. Level a presents a succession of applied dominant-​seventh chords moving in descending fifths. These are altered in level b to root-​ position sevenths alternating with 43 chords. In level c, diminished-​seventh chords, alternating in 42 and 56 position, are substituted for the dominant-​ seventh chords. Example 5.32 presents a slightly altered version of the music in bars 57–​ 59 based on this succession of chromatically descending diminished-​seventh chords. In the actual music, Bach foregoes writing G♭ in the bass on the downbeat of bar 58 in order to avoid the skip of a diminished fifth down to C on the second eighth note. In doing so, he needs to retain E♮4 in the tenor voice on the downbeat of bar 58 before descending chromatically through E♭4 to D4 on the last beat. Furthermore, he does not resolve the D4 in the alto voice of the V43 of E-​flat major that appears on the downbeat of bar 59. Instead of continuing to an expected E♭4, Bach writes a sixteenth-​note rest instead. Although

Example 5.30 Hypothetical Version of Bars 55–​57

Example 5.31 Succession of Diminished-​Seventh Chords (Bars 57–​58)

188  Eric Wen

Example 5.32 Hypothetical Version of Bars 56–​59

Example 5.33 Enharmonic Change from Bn to Cf (Bars 56–​59)

an E-​flat major chord is the expected resolution of the chromatic succession of descending diminished-​seventh chords over mm. 57–​58, it does not literally appear. Example 5.33 shows how this succession of descending diminished-​seventh chords leads from C minor in bar 56 to E-​flat major in bar 59. Letter a shows a C-​minor 36 chord decorated by a neighboring diminished-​seventh chord in 34 position with B♮4 in its top voice. Letter b shows this same diminished-​seventh chord but altered to 56 position through the enharmonic change of B♮4 to C♭5, becoming a VII56 in E-​flat major. Letter c shows the enharmonic alteration of B♮4 to C♭5 in the diminished-​seventh chord; essentially, it functions as a chromatic passing tone between C♮5 and B♭4. In level d, the diminished-​seventh

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  189 chord supporting B♮4 in the top voice is initially presented in 42 position before being altered to 56 position with the enharmonic change to C♭4 occurring in the tenor part. Level e shows how these enharmonically equivalent harmonies are connected through a succession of chromatically descending diminished-​ seventh chords. Finally, level f presents a voice-​leading sketch of this motion from C minor to E-​flat major over bars 56–​59. Despite the unequivocal implication of E-​flat major over these bars, this harmony does not literally appear in bar 59. On the second beat of this bar, the alto part has a sixteenth-​note rest and the tenor voice articulates D instead of the expected E-​flat. The resultant chordal sonority is thus G minor, not E-​flat major. What is the meaning of this G-​minor chord? Does it represent a return to the home tonic of the fugue? Example 5.34 shows how this G-​minor sonority represents the substitution of III for a I6 in E-​flat major. As shown in level b, the G-​minor harmony results from a suspension of the leading tone D in the inner voice of the preceding V43. Although it is nominally a root-​position G-​minor chord, it stands for an E-​flat harmony in first inversion. In the succeeding levels the G-​minor harmony is expanded through chordal skips (level d), an unfolding in the bass (level e), and the filling in of the chordal skips with parallel thirds in the upper two parts (level f).

Example 5.34 III as Substitute for I6

190  Eric Wen With the arrival in E-​flat major, we arrive at the climactic moment in the fugue. Here the subject and countersubject appear in invertible counterpoint, but, as noted earlier, both ideas are stated in parallel thirds. Throughout the fugue, Bach has exploited invertible counterpoint in imaginative ways, but in this passage he does something most spectacular. As shown in Example 5.35, Bach now combines all four voices together in a manner that articulates invertible counterpoint at the octave, tenth, and twelfth simultaneously. As Tovey remarks, this is “the complete combination, thirds added to both themes; so that the four parts present inversion in the octave, the tenth (in two ways at once), and the twelfth, with its characteristic sevenths now in complete chords.”8

Example 5.35 Four Permutations of Invertible Counterpoint

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  191 This remarkable passage over bars 59–​ 61 articulates an expansion of E-​flat major. As shown in Example 5.36, it originates from a prolongation of E-​flat major through a motion in parallel tenths in the outer parts. In level a, the motion from I6 to V43 is embellished by the insertion of alternating 43 and 35 chords. Since the G-​minor chord at the outset of this passage actually represents the substitution of III for I6 in E-​flat major, this alteration allows for a consistent sequential pattern of alternating 35 and 43 chords as shown in level b. Unlike the preceding entries where the sequential pattern begins on the downbeat of the second bar of the fugue theme, in this entry the succession of seventh chords on the downbeats of bars 60–​62 does not form the basis of the sequential pattern. It is rather the series of descending 35 chords in parallel motion on the upbeat chords in bars 59–​61. Example 5.37a shows how these 5 3 chords are elaborated. Note that the sequence begins on the last beat of bar 59, not the downbeat of bar 60. The descending fifth leaps in the bass are not harmonic in origin, but derive from the stepwise contrapuntal motion. The analysis of these bars given in Example 5.37b shows the harmonic progression from I to IV7 in E-​flat major. One would expect the six repeated notes stated in thirds in bar 62 to continue on the downbeat of the following bar, as happens in all preceding statements of the countersubject. At the beginning of bar 63, however, Bach alters the seventh “hammer blow.” Instead of repeating the same notes from the preceding bar in the two lowest parts (A♭3 supporting C4), he has them continue up by step to B♭3 supporting D4. As a result, the IV7 harmony in bar 62 does not, as with the previous entries, complete its statement on the second beat of bar 63, as in the hypothetical version of these bars in Example 5.38. Instead of leading to an implied V24 at the beginning of bar 63 that resolves to I6 on the second beat, it continues to a root-​position B-​flat major chord that initiates the sixth episode.

Example 5.36 Elaboration of Descending Tenths

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192  Eric Wen

Example 5.37a Sequential Pattern Over Bars 59–​61

Example 5.37b Analysis of Bars 59–​62

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  193 5.8  Sixth Episode (Bars 63–​67) The musical material of the sixth episode is drawn primarily from the descending sixteenth-​notes in the countersubject. Beginning in B-​flat major, we might expect it to lead into another statement of the subject in E-​flat major, as shown in Example 5.39. But Bach deflects our expectations. Despite its fleeting appearance on the last beat of bar 63, E-​flat major is suddenly diverted to C minor in bar 64 (Example 5.40). At the arrival in C minor in bar 64, Bach combines the subject and countersubject in invertible counterpoint in parallel thirds yet again. Since only the first three bars of this combination were stated in bars 59–​61, bar 64 articulates the fourth bar and thus completes the entry. In the next two bars the sixteenth-​note figure passes into the tenor and alto, before culminating on a D-​major chord on the downbeat of bar 67. The importance of this moment is heightened by the dramatic pause; this D-​major chord

Example 5.38 Hypothetical Closure in E-​flat (Bars 59–​63)

Example 5.39 Bars 61ff Rewritten

Example 5.40 Return to C minor (Bars 62–​64)

194  Eric Wen unequivocally represents the structural dominant of the entire fugue. Having established that the C-​minor cadence at bar 45 represents the subdominant in the overall key of G minor, the motion over bars 45–​67 represents the large-​ scale chordal succession IV–​V. So how do we understand the significance of the E-​flat major passage? In the fugue’s home key of G minor, it represents the submediant harmony (VI), but why does it come in between the IV and V? The structural levels presented in Example 5.41 reveal the tonal meaning of the remarkable tour de force of invertible counterpoint in E-​flat major within the motion from IV to V. Level a presents the background progression of IV leading to V, supporting the melodic descent from 4̂ to 2̂ over bars 56–​67. 3̂ in the top voice is an unsupported passing tone and articulates the seventh over the C-​minor IV chord. In level b, a chromatic passing tone in the bass C♯3 is brought in beneath the dissonant passing tone B♭4 resulting in a ♯IV7. The inner voice E♭4 is inflected up a chromatic semitone to avoid the interval of a diminished third with the bass. In order to avoid parallel fifths with the top voice descent from 4̂ to 3̂ , the E♭4 in the tenor leaps down a diminished fifth to A4. In level c, a voice exchange between the bass and tenor voices alters the ♯IV7 into 56 position. Maintaining the E-flat in both chords results in an augmented-​sixth chord to support 3̂ in the top voice. Having provided the large-​scale tonal framework for the motion from IV to V, we are now in a position to understand the meaning of the E-​flat harmony expanded over bars 59–​61. As shown in level d, E-​flat major—​designated as VI—​serves to prepare the bass note E♭3 and top voice B♭4 as stable tones before they become part of the active augmented-​sixth chord at the end of bar 66. In level e, a passing tone D4 connects the inner voice descent of a diminished third from E♭4 to C♯4. Level f shows a skip up a third from E♭3 to G in the bass. This gives temporary consonant support (i.e., “CS”) to the passing D4 in the inner voice, transforming it into a root-​position G-​minor chord. Although nominally a root-​position “tonic” chord, it does not represent a return to the home key, but functions locally to give temporary consonant support to the passing D4 in the inner voice. At level g, a passing diminished-​seventh chord connects the initial C-​minor chord to the E-​flat major VI chord that initially supports 3̂ in the structural top-​voice descent. The C♭4 in the top voice of this diminished-​seventh chord functions as a chromatic passing tone connecting the structural melodic descent from C5 (4̂ ) to B♭4 (3̂ ). Furthermore, in this level the G-​minor “CS” chord is itself tonicized by an auxiliary cadence. Level h shows an expansion of the diminished-​seventh chord that tonicizes E-​flat major. Although first brought in with B♮4 as its top voice in 42 position, it becomes a 56 chord with B♮ enharmonically altered to C♭ in an inner voice (see Example 5.29). Finally, a foreground analytical graph of this entire passage is presented in level i.

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Example 5.41 Descent from 4̂ to 2̂ (Bars 56–​67)

196  Eric Wen 5.9  Final Cadence (Bars 67–​75) and Coda (Bars 75–​84) With the arrival on the big dominant at bar 67, we now expect final closure in the tonic. At this point, however, Bach decides to offer yet another statement of the subject and countersubject in invertible counterpoint at the octave. However, in the middle of bar 69 it breaks off, interrupted by another entry involving all four voices. Example 5.42 presents the tonal structure of this incomplete entry in two voices. It serves to delay the arrival on the final tonic by leading to I6 and brings back 5̂ (D5) in the uppermost voice. In the four-​voice entry beginning in bar 69, the upper two and lower two voices pair up to announce a statement of the subject over the countersubject. Each of these pairs state the subject and countersubject at the same intervallic distance as that given in bars 32ff. (cf. Example 5.18). However, because both these entries appear a tenth apart, the intervallic distance between the subject in the soprano and the countersubject in the bass occurs in its original form. Example 5.43 isolates the individual relationships between the four parts. Although the subject and countersubject alternate in position from the top to the bass voice, there are a total of three occurrences of the original

Example 5.42 Avoidance of Final Cadence (Bars 67–​69)

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  197

Example 5.43 Four Permutations of Invertible Counterpoint (Bars 69ff)

permutation of subject over countersubject. The one instance of invertible counterpoint, articulated by the alto and tenor, is at the twelfth. This final four-​voice entry leads into the final cadence and prolongs the initial structural melodic tone 5̂ before it initiates the descent to 1̂ . As shown in the successive levels of Example 5.44, D5 leads down a third to B♭4 before continuing the melodic descent from 4̂ to 1̂ articulated by the final cadence over bars 74–​75. 5.10  Overview of the Entire Fugue Having achieved the final tonic at bar 75, how does one reconcile the melodic descent from 5̂ to 2̂ over bars 67–​75 with the broader one from 5̂ to 2̂ articulated

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Example 5.44 Auxiliary Cadence (Bars 69–​75)

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  199

Example 5.45 Bars 67–​75 with Auxiliary Cadence

over the course of the entire fugue up until bar 67 (cf. Examples 5.24 and 5.41)? As shown in Example 5.45, the initial descent from 5̂ to 2̂ represents the fundamental melodic line (i.e., Urlinie), whereas the second descent from 5̂ to 1̂ articulates an auxiliary cadence that expands the motion from 2̂ over V to its closure on 1̂ over the final tonic. Example 5.46 presents the successive stages of the deep middleground levels leading to the Ursatz (i.e., fundamental structure) that articulates an Urlinie descent from 5̂ to 1̂ . Few could deny the Fugue’s severe and uncompromising Affekt. The repeated notes in the subject itself express an uncompromising insistence that Philipp Spitta aptly describes as hammer blows. Yet at the climax that begins in bar 59, there is a respite from the work’s almost forbidding overall character. This E-​flat major passage, in which all four voices articulate the three most fundamental permutations of invertible counterpoint (at the octave, tenth, and twelfth), is a celebratory moment. The mere act of combining all four voices together in these three most basic permutations of double counterpoint is by itself an almost incalculable musical achievement. For Bach also to have succeeded in making it not only musically coherent, but also the most exalted moment in the entire Fugue, is a testament to his unfathomable genius. Here, artifice truly becomes art.

200  Eric Wen

Example 5.46 Middleground to Ursatz

Notes 1 Zarlino, Gioseffo. Le istitutioni harmoniche, trans. Guy Marco and Claude Palisca (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), 159. 2 Spitta, Phillip. Joh. Seb. Bach, vol. 2 (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1921), 671. 3 Tovey, Donald Francis. The Well-​Tempered Clavier (London: The Associated Board of the Royal School of Music, 1924), 128. 4 Although complete analyses of Bach’s fugues do not figure prominently in the Schenkerian literature, a number of authors have specifically focused on invertible counterpoint. Notable among them are William Renwick in his book Analyzing Fugue: A Schenkerian Approach (Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press, 1995), and two articles by Peter Franck: “A Fallacious Concept: Invertible Counterpoint at the Twelfth within the Ursatz” in Music Theory Spectrum 31, 2 (Fall 2010) and “Reaching-​Over and Its Interaction with Invertible Counterpoint at the Tenth” in Theory and Practice 36 (2011). 5 Spitta likened the repeated notes to “hammer blows” (Hammerschläge) (II, 669). In a masterclass presented at the Jerusalem Music Centre in January 2012, András Schiff drew a programmatic analogy between these insistent repeated notes and Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. 6 Tovey, Donald Francis. The Well-​Tempered Clavier (London: The Associated Board of the Royal School of Music, 1924), 128. 7 I ask the reader’s indulgence for the pedestrian rewriting of these passages from J.S. Bach’s G-​minor Fugue. Few people’s efforts could ever bear comparison to

“All-Comprehending” Invertible Counterpoint  201 the Leipzig master. A notable exception, however, is Kevin Korsyn who is happily celebrated in this volume of collected essays. His masterly completion of the incomplete Fugue from Die Kunst der Fuge, offered in “At the Margins of Music Theory, History, and Composition: Completing the Unfinished Fugue in Der Kunst der Fuge by J. S. Bach” in Music Theory & Analysis 3, 11 (October 2016), combines eloquent compositional technique worked out with scholarly thoroughness. 8 Tovey, Donald Francis. The Well-​Tempered Clavier (London: The Associated Board of the Royal School of Music, 1924), 129.

Bibliography Schenker, Heinrich. 1979. Free Composition. Translated and edited by Ernst Oster. New York: Longman. Spitta, Phillip. 1921. Joh. Seb. Bach, volume 2. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel. Tovey, Donald Francis. 1924. The Well-​Tempered Clavier. London: The Associated Board of the Royal School of Music. Zarlino, Gioseffo. 1968. Le istitutioni harmoniche. Translated by Guy Marco and Claude Palisca. New York: W. W. Norton.

Part III

Music and Interdisciplinarity

6 Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman Michael L. Klein

6.1  A Personal Note as Introduction In 1992, as I was completing my doctoral work and approaching a dissertation topic, Martha Hyde, who knew that I had competing interests in music and literature, suggested that I read a brilliant new article on musical influence by Kevin Korsyn. I read his “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence” (1991) with great interest, especially since it so deftly brought literary theory, Schenkerian analysis, motivic analysis, history, and biography to the study of music by two of my favorite composers, Chopin and Brahms. I used a bit of Korsyn’s work in my dissertation on the music of Lutosławski, but I set aside the greater task of learning critical theory until after I could land a job. Five years later, I took my first position at The University of Texas at Austin, where my colleague Cynthia Gonzales and I started a music-​theory reading group for graduate students and faculty members. Our first reading was that same article on influence by Korsyn, whose work sparked lively discussion. By this time, I had begun to spend more time reading critical theory than music theory. I started with Harold Bloom’s work, since it had inspired Korsyn’s now famous article.1 I turned to Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), which served as a bibliography for my next readings by Barthes, Foucault, and Kristeva, the last of whom wrote a famous article on intertextuality that gripped my imagination enough to write my first book.2 After that introduction to Korsyn’s work, I decided that each of his new publications would be a must-​read, although admittedly I did not agree with everything he wrote. I enjoyed his second foray into intertextuality and influence, “Directional Tonality and Intertextuality: Brahms’s Quintet op. 88 and Chopin’s Ballade op. 38” (1996). I often teach his essay on Bakhtin, “Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence, and Dialogue” (2001), because it addresses the problems of thinking about individual pieces as cut off from the music surrounding it, while illustrating that the idea of intertextuality had its own precursor in Bakhtin’s notion of the dialogic novel. When Korsyn published Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research (2003), I devoured it. By this time, I felt more comfortable with studies of culture, discourse, subjectivity, intertextuality, semiotics, and a host of other DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-11

206  Michael L. Klein topics within critical theory, which were rarely among those central to a doctorate in music theory when I earned my degree. For much of Korsyn’s book, one doesn’t need a grounding in critical theory; one just needs experience teaching in the academy. Parts of the book describe today’s university as hellbent on the commodification of knowledge, the quantification of workloads, and the enumeration of assessments and assessments of assessments. Korsyn describes part of the problem early: “more and more teaching responsibilities are delegated to adjunct faculty, and students are treated as consumers of the universitycorporation” (2003, 21). Korsyn’s “universitycorporation” is now called the “neoliberal university,” where students as consumers bring capital into the academy, while faculty must prove their worth by creating courses that will attract a large number of students. These sections of Korsyn’s book are sad, funny, and prescient, since, in my view, things have only gotten worse. More important than these portions of his book, though, are the sections where he asks why we analyze music, what counts as musical knowledge, and why scholars are so adept at talking past one another. It is to one such section of that book to which I will turn in this essay. I will begin by exploring a part of Korsyn’s Decentering Music that discusses the various ideologies in play around analyses of Chopin’s Preludes, op. 28. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex argument, I will contend that Korsyn is concerned with why unity and autonomy are so valued in analysis. I will make a small but important adjustment to Korsyn’s argument, turning his discussion of the Preludes toward hermeneutics. From that section on the Preludes, I will move to the movie Prometheus (2012), because Chopin’s so-​called Raindrop Prelude (the title is not Chopin’s) plays a crucial role as diegetic music in an early scene of that movie. I will argue that the role of that Prelude in Prometheus is to illustrate how one character, David, fashions himself into a humanist subject of a variety born in the nineteenth century. Before fleshing out this idea, I will look at the Raindrop Prelude itself, with particular focus both on the circumstances around its composition at Mallorca and on a meaning for the piece that has little to do with raindrops. Finally, I’ll return to Prometheus to show how the middle section of the Prelude finds a visual counterpart in the second and third acts of the movie. The claim will be that the Raindrop Prelude and the movie question the humanist subject and serve as a posthumanist critique of the project of humanism. Korsyn’s work, then, will be a launching point for topics that are close to the problems of posthumanism that are at the center of my current research. Before closing this introduction, I should note that the concepts of humanism and posthumanism are enormously complex. Humanism includes a wide and unwieldy collection of ideas that appeal to rational thought, the dignity of all people, universal rights, and a host of -​isms that I cannot hope to unpack in a short essay. One twentieth-​century conception of humanism “considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man’s life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now.”3 This idea will come into play when the essay turns to the movie Prometheus. Posthumanism

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  207 equally involves a broad set of ideas, from the critique of humanism, to the extension of human abilities through prostheses, to the cyborg or android as a new kind of human on the horizon, to the end of the Anthropocene. For the purposes of what follows, I am interested primarily in the humanist idea that the self is whole but always capable of growth, and in the posthumanist critique of that idea, which arguably begins with the Freudian revolution.4 6.2  Decentering Chopin’s Preludes In Chapter 4 of Decentering Music, Korsyn considers the problem of what he calls the cryptocycle, “cases where analysts purport to discover cyclic connections among works previously considered separate entities” (100). Among several examples, he mentions Alfred Brendel’s notion that the last three piano sonatas by Schubert work as a trilogy. Rightly, Korsyn takes the cryptocyle as an opportunity to question why we search for unity across pieces, or at all. He asks, “What is a musical part? What is a musical whole?” (101). To answer these and other questions around the boundaries and identity of a piece, Korsyn uses Chopin’s Preludes, op. 28 as a test case. Rather than work out an either/​or situation around the problem of the Chopin Preludes as cycle, Korsyn opens up the possibilities by claiming that there are four positions surrounding the question of unity in this opus. First, Korsyn observes that by analyzing individual preludes as complete pieces, theorists and musicologists implicitly treat them as monads, “a closed unit: like a turtle that carries its own house on its back” (103). Second, he argues that some scholars treat the Preludes as nomads, “pieces that radically question the idea that the work of art can achieve autonomy by channeling all forces that threaten its unity” (ibid.). Next, Korsyn turns to those who treat the Preludes as a cryptocycle: “the autonomy that others might grant to individual preludes becomes a property of the whole set” (104). Finally, he teases out the possibility of the Preludes as a paradoxical cycle, a collection of fragments that question the very unity to which they appeal, a large fragment of fragments (104–​05). Korsyn writes that these four analytical treatments of the Preludes create what he calls a “Tower of Babel: four fundamentally different constructions of the Preludes as discursive objects, four groups talking past each other, lacking a common language, and unable even to agree as to whether the Preludes constitute a single work” (106). To illustrate this analytical Tower of Babel, Korsyn composes a conversation involving four imaginary scholars with fanciful names that match their stances on the Preludes: Mondia, Nomadia, Dr. Zyklus, and Mr. Paradox. Korsyn then aligns each of the stances with one of the four master tropes: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. I will forego working through each of the metaphors in order to reimagine Korsyn’s argument in different terms that nonetheless resonate with his central concern around the problem of unity and why it matters so much to theorists and musicologists. This reconception of the problem will allow me to move to a discussion of Chopin’s Prelude in D♭ major,

208  Michael L. Klein op. 28, no. 15 (hereafter Raindrop Prelude) and its use in an early scene in the movie Prometheus. The reconception I have in mind begins with semiotics, the home discipline of intertextuality as addressed in the work of Kristeva and, later, Barthes and others. Korsyn explains that each of the master tropes involves part/​whole relationships. For reasons that will become clear later, I will switch out the word part for fragment, leaving us with a whole/​fragment binary that can be unfolded into four possibilities: whole/​whole, fragment/​whole, whole/​fragment, and fragment/​fragment. These possibilities map onto four perspectives about the preludes that are similar to the perspectives discussed by Korsyn: each prelude is a whole, and the entire set is a whole; each prelude is a fragment, but the entire set is a whole; each prelude is a whole, but the entire set is a fragment; finally, each prelude is a fragment, and the entire set is a fragment. We can create a semiotic square that sets out the far points of an ideology concerning wholeness vs. fragmentation in analysis of the preludes.5 Rather than presenting the square without comment, I’m going to talk through its formation because, as Fredric Jameson argues, it matters how we set up the square to illustrate an ideology.6 To begin, we have to decide if two of the four possibilities form a binary with an important circulation in the culture, defined narrowly here as a music-​analytic one. Because the term whole (as in unified/​autonomous/​organic) is valued in music analysis, I choose the pair whole/​whole first and find its opposition in the pair fragment/​fragment. By convention the unmarked term goes in the upper left corner of the square, and its marked opposition goes in the upper right corner (see Example 6.1).7 Basically, what the square shows so far is that the more common strategy in music analysis is to seek wholeness in music (the unmarked term), while to seek fragmentation is less common (marked), standing out when analysts illustrate it. For example, I may seek fragmentation in music as a response to the idea of Romantic irony, but I would not usually do so without some impetus to guide me away from the notion of wholeness. As for the lower positions on the square, each should be a contrary to its opposite corner, which the crossed

Example 6.1 Semiotic Square for Analysis of Chopin’s Preludes

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  209 arrows signify. In exact terms, non-​whole/​non-​whole is the contrary of whole/​ whole, and that term should appear in the lower right corner.8 But eventually these contraries need to be assigned a more exact set of terms. Because wholeness as an attribute of an opus is the ultimate sign of both analytical and compositional mastery within the music-​analytic culture under discussion, I take the pair fragment/​whole as the contrary to fragment/​fragment. Thus, fragment/​whole appears in the lower left corner, leaving whole/​fragment for the lower right corner. One final attribute of the square is that the entire left side values wholeness, understood either as a property of each Prelude and the set of Preludes, or as the teleology of the Preludes. Similarly, the entire right side of the square values fragmentation, understood as a property of each Prelude and the set of Preludes, or as a failed teleology, where the sum of the parts never manages to reach the status of a whole. The chart is not complete because the terms whole and fragment in their four possible combinations signify something else in the culture. For now I’ll point out that the resulting square is a picture of ideology, or, more properly, of ideologies. Given the dual question of whether the pieces and the collection of Chopin Preludes are whole or fragmented, the four corners of the semiotic square show us the possible positions one can take. In a sense, then, analysts are not thinking for themselves when they take up these questions; they are reflexively occupying one of the possible ideological viewpoints whose terms are set in advance. Just as we do not read books, but they read us, we do not choose an ideological point of view, but it chooses us. This reversal is another way of saying that we are often blind to our ideologies; they guide our thinking in advance. Moreover, ideology works best precisely when we are blind to it. Since we are chosen by an ideology, we often do not recognize that our way of approaching analysis is not one we really question at all. The classically trained analyst, especially during the time that Korsyn wrote his book, does not really ask whether they should find unifying features in music; they simply look for those features as they conduct what Thomas Kuhn would call “normal science.”9 What the semiotic square captures is that our place within the possible positions is an ideology that guides our thought processes and conclusions before we start to think. But there is more. What is wholeness? What is fragmentation? Why should it matter to us whether we find a piece of music to be whole or fragmented? Fragmentation as a marked property implies strangeness; as mentioned, the music analyst does not pursue a demonstration of fragmentation in music without some historical or cultural nudge away from wholeness. I want to argue that the appeals to wholeness and unity are metaphors for a model of the self that came to the fore in the nineteenth century.10 We can call it the bourgeois subject, after Julia Kristeva’s work on intertextuality, or the humanist subject in reference to a loose set of beliefs that reinvent the human subject in the nineteenth century.11 The humanist subject is whole, self-​contained, self-​motivated, self-​sustaining, autonomous, and complete. The psyche of the humanist subject takes on all challenges and disappointments as opportunities to grow into

210  Michael L. Klein a greater whole. The humanist subject may begin in young childhood as a collection of fragmented thoughts and feelings, but by adulthood, he (always he in the nineteenth century) becomes whole. The whole/​whole and fragment/​whole portions of the semiotic square describe an ideology of the self that seeks its counterpart in music. The ideology will always rule the decisions of the analyst occupying these portions of the square. The opposing ideology on the right side of the square is the one concerning fragmentation, especially as theorized by Freud and Lacan. We can call it the posthumanist subject, after Ihab Hassan and his famous statement, “we need to understand that five hundred years of humanism may be coming to an end, as humanism transforms itself into something that we must helplessly call posthumanism” (1977, 843). The fragmented/​posthumanist self is always late on the scene, always defined before the prosthesis of language can help us define ourselves; it/​they/​she/​he is always driven by a desire for wholeness that can never be achieved. The fragmented self does not know itself; its unconscious is the undiscovered country, and its symptoms are a series of displacements that cannot find a complete cure or a wholly satisfactory meaning. When one symptom is cured, another comes to take its place in an endless process. The fragmented self often looks back to an early stage of development with a nostalgia for a lost wholeness that it never really had. The whole/​fragment and fragment/​fragment portions of the semiotic square describe an ideology of the self that seeks fragmentation in music. Analysts in this portion of the square are marked by their very denial of autonomy and unity in music, and they always find the fragmentation that they seek there. Example 6.2 reveals the semiotic square that correlates whole and fragment to types of subjectivity. Such a correlation between unity/​autonomy/​wholeness in music and in the self is as old as the nineteenth century. For music analysts the most famous

Example 6.2 Expanded Semiotic Square for Chopin’s Preludes

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  211 expression of this idea may be a passage by Schenker in the introduction to his Free Composition. In its linear progressions and other comparable tonal events, music mirrors the human soul in all its metamorphoses and moods—​“alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis” (“what is passing is only resemblance,” Goethe).12 How different is today’s idol, the machine! It simulates the organic, yet since its parts are directed toward only a partial goal, a partial achievement, its totality is only an aggregate which has nothing in common with the human soul. (1979, xxiii–​xxiv) The music-​to-​human metaphor works both ways in Schenker’s thought. Music must be whole, just as the human soul is whole. Music whose parts (fragments) move toward an amalgamation that is only “an aggregate” has nothing to do with the human soul. Under Schenker’s ideology nothing less than the wholeness of the human soul is at stake when analyzing music with a view to its internal coordination of linear progressions and tonal events. The same metaphor appears throughout the literature of music analysis. To name just one other example, Edward T. Cone’s classic article on Schubert’s Moment Musical No. 6 goes through an analysis of the piece before turning to two questions that he suggests could be forbidden ones: “What context might the composer himself adduced? What personal experiences might Schubert have considered relevant to the expressive significance of his own composition?” (1982, 240). Cone’s questions make the music-​to-​human metaphor more fraught because they involve a particular human, Schubert. For our purposes, though, the telling moment happens a paragraph earlier in Cone’s article, where he suggests that the pitch E♮ in the Moment Musical is like a vice that Schubert (in this case) cannot learn to control. According to Cone, the piece falls apart because Schubert fell apart. But the idea that Schubert was already fragmented, posthuman, prior to and independent of any particular life events, does not seem to have occurred to Cone. I want to make clear that the semiotic square is neither a truth claim nor the validation of one. A semiotic square is not meant to prove an idea; it is only a tool meant to show how one thinks through an idea. As I do that thinking, a surprising thought might come to the fore, such as the thought that music analysis serves to underscore an ideology about subjectivity. That is, if one is invested in the human subject as whole and complete, one might use that investment toward an ideology of tonal music as a metaphor for wholeness and completeness. Music analysis, then, is making a greater claim than one might suppose in thinking of only what the analysis says of the music itself: analysis is invested in wholeness because analysts are invested in the idea of the humanist subject. In this ideology, analysis must overcome any idea of fragmentation in music because it aligns itself with a subjectivity that we call humanist. With this new human/​posthuman binary in place, we are ready to turn to a

212  Michael L. Klein particular prelude. I will examine the use of Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude in a movie because this examination will underscore the issues at play. 6.3  Prometheus and the Humanist Subject Prometheus (2012), a prequel to the Alien franchise, culminates in the birth of the first member of the species of alien that will plague the characters in the later movies.13 After archeologists discover cave paintings with primitive stellar maps, a group of scientists uses these maps to make a journey to a small planet that they assume to be the home world of an alien species they call “Engineers,” who are progenitors of homo sapiens. While exploring the planet, the scientists discover that the Engineers died long ago from a biological weapon that is stockpiled in their ships. One Engineer, however, has survived in a cryotube. Once released, he kills part of the landing party and sets the navigation system of his ship on a course for Earth, with the intent of using his bioweapons to extinguish homo sapiens. Only a suicide collision between Prometheus (the scientist’s spacecraft) and the Engineer’s ship prevents humankind’s annihilation. The Engineer survives to hunt down Elizabeth (Noomi Rapace), who is aboard a stranded shuttlecraft. Before the physically imposing Engineer can murder Elizabeth, though, she releases a deadly organism that impregnates the Engineer in a manner similar to the oral assaults common in the Alien movies. In the final scene of Prometheus, we witness the first gruesomely familiar alien burst through the chest of the Engineer. The first scene that will concern us appears as a montage early in the film, where we see David (Michael Fassbender), an android, spending his days looking over the Prometheus and its crew in their cryotubes as they hurtle through space toward the Engineers’ planet (00:09:31–​00:11:37). Essentially alone in the ship, David undertakes various projects that we might call humanist, particularly as they relate to the idea mentioned earlier that the human personality seeks development and fulfillment. David trains his body, learning to shoot baskets while on a bicycle; and he trains his mind, learning Schleicher’s Proto-​ Indo-​ European language and memorizing Schleicher’s Fable, Avis akvāsas ka (“The Sheep and the Horses”). When not training, learning, or looking after his crewmates in their cryotubes, David watches his favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia, and memorizes lines for future use: “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.” The musical background to this montage of David’s daily rituals is Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude.14 It is odd that David spends so much time becoming a nineteenth-​century subject, especially studying philology and listening to Chopin. Although it is unclear to the viewer until later in the film, David is an android, and in retrospect one wonders why physical feats and ancient languages were not part of his programming to begin with. As an android, David is posthuman by definition. Despite his ontological status as a posthuman, David seeks to become a humanist, as if he has nostalgia for a way of being that he never could have known. David’s path to humanism is through the acquisition of language and

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  213 music, which both ironically are prostheses that make us posthuman. Part of posthumanism as a critique of humanism is posthumanism’s identification of the failure of the humanist project to recognize the various prostheses that we must master to make our way in the world. These prostheses belong to categories of development that Lacan describes as the Imaginary (during which the young infant realizes that it has little control over its body), and the Symbolic (during which the young child must master language).15 One can imagine that as an android, David was built with the various masteries that humans must learn for themselves. Rather than treat himself as complete, needing no mastery of anything other than himself, David gains control of the various prostheses necessary for organic human development: the body (the first machine we master), language (the machine that masters us), and an inner life, brought forth here in two forms as specular, a movie, and ocular, music. As an android, he has all he needs to operate as a subject in the world. Still, he simulates stages of development that would make him human, doing so without the social interaction that is essential to that very development. As such, David is a would-​be humanist who is really a posthuman assemblage of what makes a humanist. David’s pursuits on the spaceship align with the movie’s narrative of origins and with the chain of events that he will set in motion. First, Schleicher’s Fable. The philologist August Schleicher reconstructed a Proto-​Indo-​European (PIE) language as part of an evolutionary model of language, whose sources he hoped to understand. In the movie, the implication is that PIE is an ancient spoken language that became the source of all other languages. We learn that David masters PIE because the archeologists seeking the alien Engineers hope that he can communicate with them in their own tongue. In fact, PIE is not a source language: Schleicher argued that “to assume one original universal language is impossible” (2014, 2). Rather, PIE was the result of a comparative study that “throws light on speech forms as much as possible, because as a rule it is not confined to the treatment of any one particular language” (ibid.). David is learning a language of languages in order to facilitate an understanding of the Engineers’ language. Schleicher’s Fable, which David practices in a part of the montage, invokes a play on Hegel’s master-​slave dialectic. In the fable a sheep expresses pity for a horse that must do heavy labor for its master, while the horse reminds the sheep that its wool is sheared to make the master’s clothing. In this ideological moment, this realization, the sheep runs away. David, too, will figuratively run away from his masters by using the Engineers’ biological weapons against his human shipmates. In so doing, he reverses his own position in the master/​slave relationship with the disastrous result of bringing the Alien (from the Alien cinematic stories) to life. The next origin tale comes from David’s fascination with Lawrence of Arabia. David quotes a famous line from the movie: “There is nothing in the desert. And no man needs nothing.” The line has a double meaning when David delivers it, because he is the man as android who needs nothing; he is no man. David’s journey to another world through the emptiness of space

214  Michael L. Klein surely parallels Lawrence’s travels through the desert. Like Lawrence, who is torn between his British superiors and the Arabic culture that he comes to understand, David is torn both literally and figuratively between the desires of his masters to find the origin of humanity and the impulse to side with the Engineers to crush his human creators. David’s various attempts to derail the mission only backfire once he brings part of the crew to the sole surviving Engineer. After David speaks to the newly awakened father of humankind, the Engineer rips David’s head from his body. By the end of the film, in one of its most uncanny scenes, Elizabeth places David’s still functional and speaking head in a bag so that he can help her to pilot another alien ship. Finally, Chopin. We overhear David listening to the Raindrop Prelude during the montage of his training sessions. As David moves from room to room, the music fades, as if he is traveling away from its electronic source. But it is unclear whether the music continues in the diegetic space or moves through what Robynn Stilwell calls the fantastical gap between diegetic and nondiegetic sound (2007). Uncertain of its placement—​is it in the world of the movie or is it only in the soundtrack?—​we can hear the Prelude as an uncanny representation of David’s inner life; the music continues in his mind and ours as the events of his day move from activity to activity. Has David chosen this particular soundtrack for his inner life, or has it chosen him? The opening of this Prelude—​the only section we hear in the movie—​exhibits the calm and beguiling surface typical of a nocturne. As Jeffrey Kallberg has argued, Chopin’s nocturnes solicited imaginings of the feminine from his listeners. Accompanying this imagery were other metaphors: “ ‘feeling,’ ‘dream,’ ‘longing,’ ‘sentiment,’ ‘tender’—​all … linked to, and surely in different degrees meant to complement, the primary image of the feminine” (Kallberg 1996, 34). More broadly, the idea of a developed inner life was a feminized one in the nineteenth century, with a growing leisure class of women learning to play the piano, read novels, attend gallery openings, and so on. I am hypothesizing that Chopin’s music became a particular emblem of an inner life. It is no accident that the most voluminous novel of an inner life, Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, features music so prominently. It may be a felicitous accident, however, that the first novels mentioned in Proust’s work are by Chopin’s lover, George Sand: La Mare au Diable, François le Champi, La Petite Fadette, and Les Maîtres Sonneurs (2003, 52). It may be a delicious coincidence that Edna Pontilier experiences the awakening of her inner life while listening to Chopin in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.16 But I would like to posit that Chopin has become the signifier writ large for interiority. I imagine Chopin hurtling through space as the last vestiges of human thought disperse into nothingness, which is fairly close to the plot of Prometheus. To the question of whether David picks Chopin, or whether Chopin picks him, then: David picks Chopin as the quintessential marker of interiority, as a prosthesis for his own inner life, but Chopin also picks David, who is so invested in the desire of every Pinocchio to become a real boy. More exactly, a movie supervisor picked Chopin to represent David’s desire for an inner

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  215 life, and the sound editor made it unclear whether David hears the music part of the time, whether he hears it only to have it fall into the underscoring, or whether he hears it at first only to have it become part of him (he doesn’t hear it literally) as he goes about his days. David is creating more than just an interiority; he is creating an unconscious, a part of himself that is opaque both to himself and those he serves. As Lacan teaches us, “the unconscious is the Other’s discourse.”17 The everyday conception of the unconscious as a set of fanciful ideas and images particular to one person is not Lacan’s conception (nor Freud’s). The unconscious, for Lacan, is what comes from culture to find a place in a particular person. What is inside comes from what is outside. And the perfection with which Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude becomes David’s interiority is that it is a piece with its own unconscious, or rather a piece that discovers the unconscious, a topic to which I now turn. 6.4  Raindrops in Context Chopin composed the Preludes primarily during his famous stay in Mallorca with George Sand and her two children during the winter of 1838. Unlike other portions of Chopin’s career—​ from which we have testimony from friends, students, and the composer’s letters that lends us a good picture of daily events—​the stay in Mallorca remains the subject of anecdotes with little evidence to support them. Chopin’s relationship with Sand had begun only in the summer of 1838, and he was concerned to keep it as private as possible (Leiken 2016, 24). During this period, he wrote only a few letters to Juljan Fontana, a Polish pianist, composer, lawyer, and former roommate of Chopin in Paris. At the end of a letter from November 19, 1838, Chopin writes to Fontana, “Don’t talk much about me to the people I know … Say that I am returning after the winter” (Chopin 1988, 185). Other than Chopin’s few letters from Mallorca (all postmarked from Palma, the capitol), our main witness to the events in Mallorca is Sand herself, who wrote about their trip of 1838 in her Un hiver à Majorque (A Winter in Mallorca), although she oddly avoids referring to Chopin by name. In addition, Sand’s Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life) includes incidents from the Mallorcan winter. Two anecdotes have accrued to the Raindrop Prelude to explain (or explain away) its epithet, which was not appended by Chopin, who generally avoided giving his music descriptive titles. The first story is that the trip to Mallorca was a disaster because the usual sunshine of the island gave way to an unusually long period of rain, which nearly drove Chopin mad, so much so that he composed the rain into one of the Preludes. This story is belied by Chopin’s letters to Fontana, in the first of which he writes, “A sky like turquoise, a sea like lapis lazuli, mountains all emerald, air like heaven. Sun all day, and hot” (Chopin 1988, 185). Two weeks later (December 3, 1838), Chopin writes, “I caught a cold in spite of 18 degrees of heat” (186).18 And by December 28, Chopin is still enchanted by the natural surroundings: “Nature is benevolent here … when one has this sky, this poetry that everything breathes here, this colouring of

216  Michael L. Klein the most exquisite places, colour not yet faded by men’s eyes” (189). In his final letter from Mallorca in early 1839, Chopin continues with positive descriptions of his natural surroundings: “I have Arab dances, African sun, Mediterranean sea” (190–​91). In all the letters, Chopin does not mention rain once. What he does complain about is the monastery that housed him, Sand, and her children. So much for the first explanation of the title Raindrop.19 The second anecdote comes from Sand’s Story of My Life, where she writes of an incident that did involve rain. Chopin, Sand, and her children stayed in a Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, which appealed to the artists because of its gothic atmosphere. The appeal was double-​edged for Chopin, because although the surroundings were beautiful, the monastery itself stoked his morbid sensibilities. In the same letter (December 28, 1838) that included such enthusiastic descriptions of his natural surroundings, Chopin writes to Fontana, “you may imagine me, without white gloves or haircurling, as pale as ever, in a cell with such doors as Paris never had for gates. The cell is the shape of a tall coffin” (1988, 188). Chopin’s description exaggerates the gloom of his living quarters except in one respect. Anatole Leiken reports that on a visit to the monastery, he found the cells to be quite spacious, leading to a private garden. One gruesome detail, however, must have made its impression on Chopin: the high ceilings ended with a rectangle bearing an uncanny resemblance to the lid of a coffin. “Apparently, every time the monks lay down, they would contemplate the memento mori molded into the ceiling” (Leiken 2016, 35). Sand reports that one day, she took her son Maurice into town, leaving her daughter Solange in the monastery, where Chopin took his usual position at the piano to compose. Torrential rain prevented Sand and her son from returning in a timely manner. When they finally managed to reach the monastery, they found Chopin in a hallucinatory state. Rising from the piano, he “uttered a loud cry, then said with a wild expression and in a strange tone of voice, ‘Ah, just as I imagined, you have died!’ ” (Sand 1991, 1091). Once Sand managed to bring Chopin back to his senses, he explained that while playing the piano he had a vision of himself drowned in a lake with drops of water falling on his chest. Sand never connects this story with the prelude now called Raindrop, although she does write that his composition of that evening was “full of the drops of rain which resounded on the sonorous tiles of the monastery” (ibid.). If we were to accept that Chopin used this particular experience as the inspiration for one of the preludes, several of them become candidates. The Prelude op. 28 no. 2 in A minor is certainly morbid and otherworldly, although one would have to accept the uncommonly dissonant bass as the drops of rain that Sand heard. Carl Schachter considers the Prelude op. 28 no. 4 in E minor to have a programmatic character involving a vision of one’s own death (1995, 152), while Frederick Niecks claims that Sand’s story is associated with the Prelude op. 28 no. 6 in B minor (2012, 45). The Prelude op. 28, no.16 in B♭ minor, with its relentless momentum, could depict a torrential rain, while the final Prelude in D minor with its path of destruction concluding with three

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  217 tolling bells could also signify Chopin’s terror. Of these preludes, the only ones that have a line that could index raindrops are the Prelude in B minor, and the Prelude in D♭ major (Raindrop). Whether we decide that the Raindrop Prelude is in B minor or D♭ major, the main point of the preceding material is that Sand’s narrative gives us an indication of Chopin’s state of mind despite his cheery letters to Fontana. The gothic cells with their coffin-​like ceilings make for a particularly good hermeneutic window into any of the more morbid preludes, and they will inform a reading of the middle section of the Raindrop Prelude. 6.5  Chopin Discovers the Unconscious In this Prelude, no listener can fail to notice the repetition of the pitch-​class Ab/​G# that runs nearly unabated from beginning to end and that no doubt contributed to the sobriquet of “Raindrop.” Blake Howe reads the repetitions as a sign of obsession, which strikes me as apropos, especially for the middle section in C♯ minor (2016, 218–​19). For our purposes, we only need a few remarks on the opening section of the Prelude, where an A♭3 in the left hand provides a persistent tenor (the structural bass beneath the A♭ is voiced only occasionally), which is embellished at times with the upper neighbor B♭3, as in m. 2 (Example 6.3). The A♭–​B♭–​A♭ motive is writ large as the tonicized keys of the first section. In m. 9, the music heads for the minor dominant, A♭ minor, which is confirmed by a full cadence in m. 12. As if having gone awry, the music immediately moves toward B♭ minor, which is confirmed by another full cadence in m. 16. A♭ returns as a structural dominant on the last beat of m. 19 to lead the music back to the home key, D♭ major. As a whole, the

Example 6.3 Opening of Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude

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Example 6.4 End of First Section of “Raindrop” Prelude

opening section has all the signs of a nocturne, which in Chopin’s hands often encounters disturbances that correct themselves by the end. We travel from D♭ major through the darker keys of A♭ minor and B♭ minor before returning to D♭ major with the beguiling melody of the opening phrase. But all goes awry again as that melody stops on a V7 chord in m. 27, as if it cannot find its way to closure, or, more poetically, as if a character has nodded off while the repeated A♭ continues on its way (Example 6.4). The middle section lays waste to the calm character of the opening, as D♭ major turns to its enharmonic parallel, C♯ minor, and the repeated A♭3 that had appeared below the melody now takes place as G♯3 (later with its octave G♯4) above the melody. The music has fallen into a dark underworld with A♭ acting as the ground beneath in the opening section, and G♯ acting as the ground above in the middle section. The melody in the left hand, which begins with an open 5th and 4th in m. 28, unfolds a gothic chant topic that is more disturbing because it begins in the bass (C♯2 to D♯2) but confronts a response in the tenor as the result of a reaching over (C♯3, B♯3). The melody is no melody at all but fragments that respond to one another.20 By m. 30, the tenor takes over the melodic line, underscoring the prior fragmentation caused by the reaching over between the bass and the tenor (Example 6.5). By m. 40, the middle section reaches an imposing, even sublime, climax in E major, whose dominant is altered because G♯ holds sway, replacing the F♯ that would complete a B-​major triad. With the obsessive G♯s, the gothic chant, the fragmented melody, and the crushing climax in a disfigured dominant of E major, this music certainly would do as the depiction of a hallucination or nightmare. By the last third of the middle section (m. 60), the melody has managed to climb above the imposing G♯s only to lose itself as G#4 becomes a cover tone with G♯3 still repeating in mm. 64–​67. Not until m. 68, close to the end of the section, does the melody maintain its station above the G♯, concluding with its own G♯–​A♯–​ G♯ neighbor over the dominant. The section now has lost its morbid darkness and sounds more pleading than foreboding (Example 6.6). In this brief analysis I interpret the middle section of the Raindrop Prelude as a hallucination involving the elements of Chopin’s daily life during his stay in Mallorca. More properly, I think of the middle section as a dream with

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  219

Example 6.5 Opening of Middle Section of “Raindrop” Prelude

evocations of memory and distance in the horn fifths in the bass of m. 32. When the opening section trails off, leaving nothing but the repeated A♭ to serve as a barrier, or a gap, between the world above (the normative register for a melody) and the world below (the marked register of the melody below the G♯), the musical subject has fallen into the royal road to the unconscious: a dream. Freud maintains that the material of a dream is taken from the previous day’s events.21 This idea is confirmed in two ways in the middle section of the Prelude. First, there is the historical figure Chopin, who, during the composition of the Preludes, lived in a cell where he experienced a morbid hallucination of his own death, which, I argue, finds one of its musical settings in the middle section of the Raindrop Prelude. Second, the material of the middle section of the Prelude transforms material from the opening section. From this point of view, the G♯ replaces A♭ not only because C♯ minor is easier to read than D♭ minor, but also because A♭ as the ground beneath our feet is quite different from G♯ as the ground above our head. G♯ is the psychical threshold below which the music enters the unconscious. The music has fallen asleep. Further, the A♭–​B♭–​A♭ motive that gently urges the nocturne topic along in the opening section becomes a pleading G♯–​A♯–​G♯ motive at the end of the middle section. Events from the light of day have become signs of the morbid, the deathly, and more importantly, the unconscious. One might say that without

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Example 6.6 End of Middle Section of “Raindrop” Prelude

knowing it, Chopin discovered the unconscious in the little raindrops that fell during the day and made their way symbolically into the hallucination that Sand describes. Also without knowing it, Chopin gave birth to a child he never knew he had: a posthumanist subject that cannot know itself fully because the unconscious is never completely laid bare for us. The middle section gives us a glimpse of what Lacan called tuché, an encounter with the real that “is essentially the missed encounter,” which presents itself to us as a form of trauma (1978, 55). Lacan wonders how it is that a dream, which in Freud’s theory is the expression of a wish, a desire, can also be the site of a trauma. His answer is that our encounter with the real is always already “a prisoner in the toils of the pleasure principle” (ibid.). That is, we cannot separate trauma from the desire that a dream is supposed to express in the form of images. From this point of view, the middle section of the Raindrop Prelude is a dream within a dream, or more properly, a kernel of the real imprisoned within the dream that starts as a nocturne, which is normally

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  221 a form of fantasized pleasure. Now the repeated notes, Ab/​G#, are the bar that the dream must cross in order to find the real as prisoner. Once the bar is crossed, a return to the nocturne is troubled. The final section of the Prelude is only half the length of the opening, although it uses the same material. And the repeated notes finally stop their relentless pattering in mm. 82–​83, allowing a single melodic line to sing a cappella, beginning with an appoggiatura B♭5 resolving down to A♭5. For me, this final section expresses a sense of loss, despite the quiet close on a D♭-​major chord, as if the dreamer realizes that the object of desire is one that is too painful to contemplate after its traumatic prisoner has revealed itself. The dreamer has made the mistake of lifting the painted veil. I have moved from a music-​analytic discourse to a hermeneutic one in discussing the Raindrop Prelude. Hermeneutics has always appeared to lack a proper methodology, other than talk of circles in and around the piece, which become suspect as soon as we discover that “there is no outside the text” (Derrida 1997, 158).22 If we want a methodology for hermeneutics, we need to look no further than the one that Freud both embraces and pushes away. It is of course impossible to give instructions upon the method of arriving at a symbolic interpretation. Success must be a question of hitting on a clever idea, of direct intuition, and for that reason it was possible for dream-​ interpretation by means of symbolism to be exalted into an artistic activity dependent on the possession of peculiar gifts. (Freud 1965, 129–​30) Although Freud has qualms about this method, it is clear that he thought of himself precisely as the one with peculiar gifts in the realm of intuition. But there is more. Later, as Freud outlines his scientific method of interpretation, he says that he asks his patients to tell him what the individual elements of their dreams might mean. “It is necessary to insist explicitly on his renouncing all criticism of the thoughts that he perceives” (133). And later, “it seems a bad thing and detrimental to the creative work of the mind if Reason makes too close an examination of the ideas as they come pouring in—​at the very gateway, as it were” (135). The method, then, really is to make a leap of intuition, a jump into a meaning. That jump of intuition is what initiates interpretation, without which there is only a playing with signs. The interpretation may stick, in which case others pick it up and expand it or use it as a starting point, or it may fail to stick, in which case it passes without much notice. Carolyn Abbate complained about the hermeneutic method that music was too sticky, leading people to use words where none would do (2004, 523). But that problem is hardly peculiar to music. Trauma is sticky; it remains with us as we try to make sense of it. Life is sticky, as we try to understand our place in the world. Love is sticky, as we search for the words that can describe it better than those that it has accrued. Abbate is right that music is sticky, but the problem she sees only means that

222  Michael L. Klein one is in a place to tear down or build on a prior interpretation. Interpretation is a spur to more interpretation. 6.6  The Gothic in Prometheus Those who know Prometheus may have realized a small problem: we never hear the middle section of the Raindrop Prelude at all in the movie. To counter this problem, I’m going to borrow a critical initiative discussed by the editors of the collection Beyond the Soundtrack. In their introduction to the essays of that book, Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert make a crucial swerve, a clinamen to enable discussion of the soundtrack that sidesteps the conventional wisdom that music signifies something in the visual track. “We want to consider film as representing music, not simply as adding music as a supplement to a cinematic representation formed via image or narrative” (Goldmark, Kramer, and Leppert 2007, 4). In this critical frame, I want to consider Prometheus as representing the Raindrop Prelude; it is a visual representation of what happens in the piece. I am not saying that the Raindrop Prelude is about aliens but that a movie about aliens is a representation of the problem of the gothic, the morbid, and the real in the Prelude. First, to what part the Prelude plays in the movie. As I discussed earlier, the Raindrop Prelude is the diegetic and nondiegetic music for a montage early in the movie, when David is creating himself as a humanist subject despite his ontological status as an android. Once the montage is finished, we never hear the Prelude again until the final scene cuts to black and the closing credits begin (01:58:01). After that, we hear the beginning of Chopin’s Prelude once more. The conception I propose is that the beginning and aftermath of Prometheus represent the beginning and aftermath of the Raindrop Prelude, while the entire second and third acts of the movie represent the middle section of the Prelude, except that Chopin’s music is missing. I might say that the middle of the movie and the middle of Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude stage a missed encounter in which the real and the traumatic will show themselves in the visual track but not the audio track. Second, to what we see once the Prelude drifts away. When the scientists enter a cave, which we later discover encloses an ancient spacecraft of the Engineers, they come to a large room that bears an uncanny resemblance to a dark cathedral (00:38:35). At the altar is a monstrous statue of a humanoid head, the perfect representation for humanism itself, since it appears that the Engineers worship no God but themselves. On the ceiling is a gothic fresco that soon disintegrates before the scientists’ eyes. Covering the floor are cylinders, like Coptic jars, which, we find out later, hold the bioweapons meant for Earth. Darkness pervades the scenes in the Engineers’ ship, except for one scene when David discovers a holographic orrery (01:11:14). Even here, though, a growing brightness extinguishes itself, leaving David back in the gloom of the ship. Various scenes involve the usual gruesome tearing of the human anatomy familiar to the Alien movies. One scientist finds himself attached to a serpentine

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  223 creature that eats into his flesh until his fearful death. One scientist unknowingly ingests some of the bioweapon, a black ooze, which transforms him until he begs for euthanasia at the end of a blowtorch. I’ll forgo listing several other terrifying scenes. Third, to who David is. David is the secret instigator of all the death and disfiguration that unfolds in Prometheus. He is the first to decipher the markings in the Engineers’ ship, allowing him to open doors, start holographic images, and gain control of the situation around him. He is the first to understand that the jars in the ship contain a viscous bioweapon, which he uses against his crewmates. He plots to kill those he dislikes, all while maintaining a cool, mildly ironic demeanor. Knowing that the Engineers had planned the annihilation of Earth before their own bioweapons turned against them, David awakens the sole surviving Engineer anyway (01:37:57). Ironically, when the Engineer is revived, he tears David’s head from his torso, leaving him helpless to complete his secret and personal mission to rid himself of his masters. As I have argued earlier, David begins as a humanist, seeking a form of growth and knowledge that has its roots in the nineteenth century. When we discover that David is an android, he becomes posthuman by definition: a technological form of life capable of ending the Anthropocene. Even then, though, he is not whole; he seeks what he cannot have and ends his story (in this movie) as a fragmented self. It is senseless to assign him a place on the semiotic square that aligns whole and part with humanist and posthumanist. We must recognize that he is both. What we must hold in our head is the possibility that David lies in the space between human and posthuman, life and death, like the repeated notes in the Raindrop Prelude. The knowing listener who first sees David listening to the opening of Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude already knows what is hidden beneath the calm surface of the music and might guess that David, too, holds a darkness that will unleash itself later in the movie. Like the middle section of the Prelude, all the hideous and macabre moments of Prometheus are signs from the real, which cannot disclose itself except in signs that only partially reveal its trauma to us. The final missed encounter in Prometheus is the dreadful birth of the alien itself, which only the viewer witnesses. No character is present to see the birth of the alien bursting from the dying Engineer’s body. The real here is missed by David, Elizabeth, and the now dead crew. Tuché. 6.7  What Makes Music Whole or Fragmented? I cross the stage, sit down at the piano, and prepare to perform a Chopin Prelude. After some applause, there is silence in the hall as I clear my mind and take a breath. I release my breath, my arms reach for the keyboard, and I start to play. I do not stop. I play until the end of the Prelude, taking time here, rushing forward there, deciding how I want to accomplish the next phrase in terms of dynamics and color. When I finish, my hands linger on the keyboard for a moment. I take a deep breath and release it again. There is another

224  Michael L. Klein moment of silence before the audience begins to applaud. Somewhere uncertain in between the first silence and the last silence is a whole and complete span of time, which, according to Bergson, we cannot quantify, because time is a quality not a quantity.23 Yet that time span lends its wholeness to the Prelude. Wholeness does not lie in the Prelude but in time itself. Following Bergson, when we cut sound into pieces, we remove it from time and place it in space. In a discussion of the tolling of bells, for example, Bergson argues: Either I retain each of these successive sensations in order to combine it with the others and form a group which reminds me of an air or rhythm which I know: in that case I do not count the sounds, I limit myself to gathering, so to speak, the qualitative impression produced by the whole series. Or else I intend explicitly to count them, and then I shall have to separate them … It is in space, therefore, that the operation takes place. (2001, 86–​87) Time is an ever-​unfolding whole to Bergson, and if I decide to cut it into pieces, I have moved from the qualitative nature of time to the quantitative nature of space. Nothing I can do during a performance of the Prelude can fragment it in the wholeness of time. I leave some notes out. I have a memory slip and skip ahead. I miss several notes. Still, the audience accepts that time span as a whole, lending its quality to the Prelude. But my mind wanders. Sometimes I think too hard about what comes next. I judge what I have already played or look ahead with trepidation to a difficult passage. I stop thinking about the Prelude completely, letting my hands do their work by themselves. And the minds in the audience wander, too. Some hold on to every note, but others start thinking about their day, or their children, or the thousand miseries that pile up in a lifetime. Because of their split attention, members of the audience miss a phrase here, a motive there, a whole section near the middle. Soon people around them are applauding, prompting them to think, “I’ve missed it.” Missed what? For all its efforts to borrow the fullness of time, the Prelude has failed to maintain our attention. The Prelude is fragmented in experience. Don’t cheat, you may think to yourself as you read this conclusion. We are talking here about motives, harmonies, tonalities, linear progressions, rhythms, textures, and how they all come together to make a whole, or how they fail to cohere and fall apart. But this is just another language game, to use Wittgenstein’s phrase, “and to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life,” a kind of thinking, a kind of subjectivity (2001, 8e). The terms of one language game in music are precisely to talk about motives, harmonies, tonalities, linear progressions, rhythms, textures, and how they all come together to make something I’ve already decided in advance will be whole or fragmented (although whole is the conventional outlook for music theory). I accept a piece of music as whole because I want it to be like I want subjectivity to be: whole but with potential for growth. I know what I am seeking

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  225 before I start, and I always find what I seek. I may decide to accept a piece as a fragment because I want it to be like another subjectivity that I accept as more modern and hard-​eyed: fragmented, unfathomable, incapable of capture in the language game usually employed for music. In either case I am knowingly or unknowingly thinking of music as I think of myself: I am whole (humanist), or I am fragmented (posthumanist), or maybe I am whole and fragmented. My thoughts appear whole to me when I read what I’ve written. But when I reflect on how I arrived at this text, struggling to keep it together, my mind wandering from idea to idea not knowing which one to expand and which one to excise, I conclude that I am both whole and fragmented. The language game of analysis in this paper has moved from analysis for the sake of analysis into analysis as an entryway into hermeneutics, which requires a different form of life, of thought. The hermeneut ponders what the Raindrop Prelude could mean, did mean, might come to mean. The hermeneut does not seek to prove an interpretation, because interpretations play by a different set of rules than the science language game, to which music theory often makes an appeal. In the hermeneutic language game, I gather witnesses (Sand, Chopin), experts (Kallberg, Leiken, Niecks), and critical thinkers (Freud, Jameson, Lacan) to wrap my interpretation in authority so that I can feel that my work is worth the reader’s effort to understand. More openly, I wrap myself in authority because the scholarly language game requires that I show that I have done my homework. Otherwise, anyone could publish an interpretation (yes, that’s irony). Finally, from the hermeneutic language game, I turned to the phenomenological one. In this game, I inspect my own experiences with Chopin Preludes as I hear them in the real world. I confess that as a performer or listener I am not always deeply engaged in the music. My attention wanders in and out of the music. In this language game, I make this confession hoping that the reader will acknowledge that they have had similar experiences. In all of these language games the problem of whole/​fragment takes on a different hue because each game requires a different form of life: the music analyst, the interpreter, the performer/​listener, each with their various ways of understanding. I take my place among these language games and defend my milieu with every form of knowledge at my disposal. Or I move from place to place in the possibilities opened by those games. What I am trying to say here is that the terms whole/​ fragment play different roles in the various games, all of which point to types of subjectivity, the “forms of life” in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. “Have you ever encountered whole beings,” Lacan asks his students. “I’ve never seen any. I’m not whole. Neither are you. If we were whole, we would each be in our corners, whole, we wouldn’t be here, together, trying to get ourselves into shape, as they say” (1988, 243). Since this essay has laid forth an argument that we knowingly or unknowingly tie our conceptions of musical wholeness or fragmentation to subjectivity, one might say that our views on Chopin’s Preludes are like Lacan’s fragmented beings trying to get themselves into shape. The analysts that Korsyn considers regarding the Chopin Preludes

226  Michael L. Klein were speaking among themselves to find answers to their own riddles around subjectivity. They were using the terms whole/​fragment to think through a problem more important than whether the music holds together. But the language games they were involved in were not all the same. One of the analysts that Korsyn considered, for example, was Lawrence Kramer, who clearly was playing the hermeneutic game while others were playing the music-​analytic game (2003, 114–​16). The cross purposes to which Korsyn refers in considering the differing views of the Preludes, then, are more complex than he let on. Not all the language games around the Preludes were the same; they were brought together by two signifiers (whole/​part in Korsyn’s final consideration) that, like all signifiers, point in many directions. Thinking of the Preludes as forms of subjectivity has led me to make a choice about them within the ideology of the human and the posthuman. I’ve done so in advance because I’ve thought that many of those who approach the Preludes had something other than whole/​fragment at stake. I’ve argued that this human/​posthuman ideology is apparent enough that a film, Prometheus, uses the Raindrop Prelude in a way that underscores that very ideology. From my point of view, then, the problem that Korsyn points to was never a problem at all. What we need to do is decide what game (I do not use that term lightly) music theorists and musicologists are playing when they try to understand music because there is always something else behind the claims we make. Like the Preludes in Chopin’s op. 28, we are fragmented subjectivities speaking among ourselves trying to get ourselves into shape, as they say. Contemplating music and why we write and talk about it among ourselves will never lead to a final word on Chopin’s Preludes or any other piece of music. When we speak among ourselves, the liveliness of our institutions is heightened by the fact that we engage in different language games that support different ideologies. In this essay about one of Chopin’s most famous Preludes, I have knowingly employed a posthumanist ideology over a humanist one because I believe that the posthuman with its acknowledgement of our many failings and contradictions turns out to be more … humane. Notes 1 Bloom’s work on the anxiety of influence also plays a central role in Joseph Straus’s Remaking the Past (1990), although Straus’s interest is in the transformation of tonal practices in modernist music. 2 The particular work I read by Kristeva was “The Bounded Text” (1980), which opens with an oft-​cited definition of intertextualité, a term that Kristeva coined. 3 There have been three humanist manifestos since 1933. The material quoted here comes from Humanist Manifesto I, a product of the American Humanist Association. The many signatories to the first manifesto included primarily clergy and philosophers, of whom the most famous was John Dewey. Accessed May 25, 2021. https://​ameri​canh​uman​ist.org/​what-​is-​human​ism/​man​ifes​to1/​

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  227 4 Two book-​length studies of posthumanism were especially helpful for this essay: Cary Wolf’s What Is Posthumanism? (2013), and the collection of essays edited by Svitlana Matviyenko and Judith Roof, Lacan and the Posthuman (2018). 5 “Far points” are the boundaries of an ideology beyond which a new ideology comes into play. When Korsyn aligns the various analyses of the Chopin Preludes with the four master tropes, he illustrates the alignment with a schema similar to the semiotic square I am discussing here (Korsyn 2003, 123, ­figure 4.2). 6 Algirdas Julien Greimas developed the semiotic square (or Greimas square) as a way of showing relationships between signs. I find Jameson’s (1987) explanation of how to form and interpret a semiotic square to be more straightforward than Greimas’s. 7 Markedness is familiar to music theorists from Robert Hatten 1994, who co-​opted and adapted the idea primarily from the semiotician Edwin L. Battistella (1990). Hatten defines markedness as “the asymmetrical valuation of an opposition. Marked entities have a greater (relative) specificity of meaning than do unmarked entities. Marked entities also have a narrower distribution” (1994, 291). 8 The reader may wonder what makes “non-​whole” different from “fragment.” The answer lies in the use of the word “contrary” in semiotics. An illustration will work better than a definition here. When Hamlet says, “To be, or not to be,” he is announcing a contrary. Interpreters often take “not to be” to mean death. But a contrary has a wider set of meanings than does an opposition. “Not to be” could mean “to act”: to be, or to act, that is the question. This particular contrary captures Hamlet’s problem well. He must decide whether to be or to act. 9 Kuhn (1996) discusses normal science in the first three chapters of his classic study. One of many observations about normal science is that the scientist working under a received paradigm rarely takes the time to question that paradigm. No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others. Instead, normal-​scientific research is directed to the articulation of those phenomena and theories that the paradigm already supplies. (24) 10 I take this claim from Michel Foucault: This fact [man as constituted in modern thought]—​it is not a matter here of man’s essence in general, but simply of that historical a priori which, since the nineteenth century, has served as an almost self-​evident ground for our thought . . . that takes as its object man as an empirical entity. (1970, 344) 11 Kristeva argues that the effect of intertextuality on our understanding of literature cannot take place until we undertake a “reevaluation of the bourgeois social text” (1980, 58). 12 Schenker is quoting the last lines of Goethe’s Faust. A more direct translation is “everything ephemeral is only an allegory [simile, parable].” The transient (the Earthly) is only an allegory for the permanent (the Heavenly). 13 Prometheus was directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed Alien (1979).

228  Michael L. Klein 14 The montage uses only the first section of the Raindrop Prelude. Because the scene runs longer than even a slow playing of the opening section of the piece, the pianist loops back to the beginning so that we hear most of the first section twice. 15 Lacan’s cryptic writings make it difficult to cite a single essay that brings together his model of the subject. A good introduction to Lacanian thought can be found in Fink (1995). 16 More particularly, Edna is listening to a Chopin Prelude, although the precise one isn’t indicated (Chopin 1993, 26). 17 Lacan (2006, 10). I have chosen only one of many places in his writings and seminars where Lacan uses this phrase. 18 It is unclear to which of the dozens of temperature gauges in use during the nineteenth century Chopin was referring to in this passage. The context is clear, though, that Chopin is not referring to Fahrenheit. In Celsius, 18 degrees is roughly 64 degrees Fahrenheit. But Chopin may have had another gauge in mind. 19 Sand does mention rain in her letters from this period (see Niecks 1890, 31–​32). 20 Leiken hears transformations of the “Dies irae” chant in this prelude (and many others in the set). Regarding the Raindrop Prelude, he claims, “what is far more important [than the programmatic title] for performance and perception of the piece is locating Dies irae motifs in different polyphonic voices of the Prelude’s texture” (2016, 113). 21 In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud’s first analysis is of one of his own dreams, which, he claims, has the advantage that he knows its context well enough to make it immediately clear to him that “events of the previous day provided its starting point” (1965, 140). Generally, Freud’s dream analyses involve finding the daily events of a patient’s life that have transformed themselves in a dream in order to signify symptoms through compression or substitution. 22 The original French reads, il n’y a pas de hors-​texte. Spivak translates this famous phrase as There is nothing outside of the text (italics in original) before offering a more literal translation in brackets “[there is no outside-​text].” The key point for me, though, is that for Derrida the real world that we consider to be outside the text is always already textual, a supplement that we must read and interpret just as we interpret a book, or postcard, or music, or any other text. Thus, the inside/​outside metaphor breaks down, and there is no outside of the text. 23 The difference between quantity (space) and quality (time) is the topic of the entirety of Bergson’s Time and Free Will, but a particular passage serves well here. In writing about a tune whose notes melt into each other, Bergson argues, might it not be said that, even if these notes succeed one another, yet we perceive them in one another, and that their totality may be compared to a living being, whose parts, although distinct, permeate one another just because they are so closely connected? (2001, 100)

Bibliography Abbate, Carolyn. 2004. “Music—​Drastic or Gnostic.” Critical Inquiry 30: 505–​36. Battistella, Edwin L. 1990. Markedness: The Evaluative Superstructure of Language. New York: State University of New York Press.

Chopin’s Preludes, Creatures of Prometheus, and the Posthuman  229 Bergson, Henri. 2001. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. Translated by F. L. Pogson. Mineoloa: Dover. Chopin, Frédéric. 1988. Chopin’s Letters. Translated by E. L. Voynich. New York: Dover. Chopin, Kate. 1993. The Awakening. New York: Dover. Cone, Edward T. 1982. “Schubert’s Promissory Note: An Exercise in Hermeneutics.” 19th-​Century Music 5, no. 3: 233–​41. Derrida, Jacques. 1997. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Eagleton, Terry. 1983. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fink, Bruce. 1995. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Random House. Freud, Sigmund. 1965. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by James Strachey. New York: Avon Books. Goldmark, Daniel, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert, eds. 2007. “Introduction. Phonoplay: Recasting Film Music.” In Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing Music in Cinema, 1–​9. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hassan, Ihab. 1977. “Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture?” Georgia Review 31, no. 4: 830–​50. Hatten, Robert S. 1994. Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Howe, Blake. 2016. “Music and the Agents of Obsession.” Music Theory Spectrum 38, no. 2: 218–​40. Jameson, Fredric. 1987. Forward to On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory, by A. J. Greimas, vi–​xxii. London: Pinter. Kallberg, Jeffrey. 1996. Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Korsyn, Kevin. 1991. “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence.” Music Analysis 10, no. 1–​2: 3–​72. —​—​—​. 1996. “Directional Tonality and Intertextuality: Brahms’s Quintet op. 88 and Chopin’s Ballade op. 38.” In The Second Practice of Nineteenth-​Century Tonality. Edited by William Kinderman and Harald Krebs, 45–​83. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. —​—​—​. 2001. “Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence, and Dialogue.” In Rethinking Music. Edited by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist, 55–​ 72. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2003. Decentering Music: A Critique of Contemporary Musical Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kristeva, Julia. 1980. “The Bounded Text” (1969). In Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Translated by Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez, 36–​63. New York: Columbia University Press. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1996. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lacan, Jacques. 1978. “Tuché and Automaton.” In The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XI, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Translated by Alan Sheridan, 53–​64. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

230  Michael L. Klein —​—​—​. 1988. “Introduction of the Big Other.” In The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954–​1955. Translated by Sylvana Tomaselli, 235–​47. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. —​—​—​. 2006. “Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter.’ ” In Écrits. Translated by Bruce Fink, 6–​48. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Leiken, Anatole. 2016. The Mystery of Chopin’s Préludes. New York: Routledge. Matviyenko, Svitlana and Judith Roof, eds. 2018. Lacan and the Posthuman. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Niecks, Frederick. 1890. Frederick Chopin, as Man and as Musician, Volume II. London: Novello, Ewer & Company. Proust, Marcel. 1913. In Search of Lost Time, Volume 1: Swann’s Way. Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D. J. Enright. New York: Random House. Sand, George. 1991. Story of My Life: The Autobiography of George Sand. Translators unlisted. Albany: State University of New York Press. Schachter, Carl. 1995. “The Triad as Place and Action.” Music Theory Spectrum 17, no. 2: 149–​69. Schenker, Heinrich. 1979. Free Composition (Der freie Satz). Translated by Ernst Oster. New York: Longman. Schleicher, August. 2014. A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-​ European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin Languages, Volume 1. Translated by Herbert Bendall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stilwell, Robynn J. 2007. “The Fantastical Gap between Diegetic and Nondiegetic.” In Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing Music in Cinema. Edited by Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert, 184–​202. Berkeley: University of California Press. Straus, Joseph N. 1990. Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations, 2nd edition. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Wolfe, Cary. 2013. What is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

7 Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts Unsiloing Art and Music in the Weimar Era Elizabeth Sears

Early in October 1930 the Fourth Congress for Aesthetics and General Art Theory (Vierter Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft) convened in Hamburg.1 Like the previous three congresses (Berlin 1913 and 1924, Halle 1927), this one was intended to foster interdisciplinary exchange. Then, as now, the consequences of disciplinary isolation were lamented and countermeasures pursued. Max Dessoir, the Berlin-​based philosopher and aesthetician who presided at each congress in turn, offered opening statements that, mutatis mutandis, might serve in the present. Back in 1906 he had taken steps that led to the founding of a long-​lived journal (Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft; hereafter ZÄK)2; the creation of the sponsoring society; and, after a positive vote had been taken by the members, the launch of the congresses.3 Yet even in 1912 there had been skeptics about the value of congresses, these arguing that they accomplished little, that there were already too many of them, and that, in the domain of aesthetic theory, communication across the different fields, even philosophy and psychology, was difficult and, in the case of the individual arts, well-​nigh impossible. Supporters of Dessoir’s position, on the other hand, believed that mutual understanding was both possible and urgently needed. In the original call for papers Dessoir made his case: problems in aesthetics were being broached in independent gatherings of philosophers, psychologists, scholars of the arts (literature, art, and music), ethnologists, sociologists, and educators, but never, under these conditions, did the inner cohesion of the problems come to light. The goal for the meeting in Berlin in 1913 was to bring aestheticians into contact with representatives of the more concrete disciplines (those who focused on the artwork “as such”) and, through lively exchange, to encourage scholars studying art, literature, and music to avail themselves of the fruits of recent work in philosophical and psychological aesthetic theory.4 The fourth congress followed the model established by the first, but, like the third, it took shape as a “problem-​congress.”5 In his opening remarks in Hamburg in 1930, Dessoir made the point that such theme-​based meetings were especially well able “to demonstrate that philosophers, psychologists and experts in the various arts have important tasks in common.”6 In Halle the foci had been “rhythm” and DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-12

232  Elizabeth Sears “symbol.” In Hamburg, the local committee, led by the neo-​Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer, organized the meeting around the categories “space” and “time” (Raum and Zeit). Praising the idea as timely, Dessoir observed that the concepts, which were beginning to unravel in the natural sciences, were due for examination in the humanities, especially with respect to their aesthetic significance.7 Of the 16 speakers at the Fourth Aesthetics Congress, it was Walter Riezler, director of the Stettin City Museum and editor of the journal Die Form, who most boldly undertook to straddle disciplines, delivering a lengthy paper on “The New Sense of Space in Visual Art and Music” (Das neue Raumgefühl in bildender Kunst und Musik).8 Whereas most speakers presented the fruits of specialist research within their disciplinary domains, Riezler drew upon a dual training in art history and musicology, showing himself able to conjure up artistic and musical examples with equal ease and to come to terms with up-​to-​the-​minute scholarship in both fields—​the work of figures ranging from Panofsky to Schenker. His paper, which can be seen as an effort to affirm the aesthetic postulate of the unity of the arts, takes on special interest owing to its extra-​academic ambition. In a fraught political climate, Riezler set out to assess and defend the arts of modernity on philosophical grounds, his tactic being to analyze European avant-​garde currents of the previous three decades with tools developed for the study of earlier artistic achievements. His interdisciplinary effort, as we will see, involved testing the idea that deep structural commonalities existed between art and music in the present as in the past, that is, in the twentieth century as in the Renaissance and Gothic eras. The category “sense of space” (Raumgefühl) served his purpose. At the core of his paper was the argument that, in the most significant creative work in art and music since about 1900, the long dominant perspectival and tonal systems (which Riezler aligned) had given way to something new. The shift was profound; the alternative sense of space marked epochal change. A means was at hand to view the works of contemporary figures—​whether Lyonel Feininger, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, or Paul Hindemith—​as products of new era, one that had the capacity to yield “classic” products in its own terms. In his attempt to bring art and music together, Riezler was, of course, entering into familiar intellectual territory. German philosophers and aestheticians had long posited the interconnectivity of the arts. Hegel, in the Aesthetics, famously both differentiated and discovered affinities among them, as here: “The focus of aesthetic consciousness through the depths of the heart is indeed what most clearly distinguishes painting from sculpture and architecture and assimilates it to music and poetry at the other extreme.”9 Many would follow suit. But the development of the academic disciplines in degree-​ granting institutions caused shifts in the consideration of the arts. While there were, to be sure, cross-​connections between emergent Kunstwissenschaft and Musikwissenschaft10—​and between the academic and extra-​academic spheres—​ scholars would increasingly gain authority as specialists, as experts, rather than as polymaths. Riezler’s willingness to conduct an interdisciplinary experiment

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  233 was likely owed in part to his professional position outside the university, as museum director and editor, and to his extra-​academic purposes in composing the paper. In the 1920s the musicologist Alfred Einstein had suggested that the practice of drawing stylistic analogies between music and the neighboring arts had devolved into a “party game for music historians” (Gesellschaftsspiel für Musikhistoriker). Riezler, citing Einstein, wanted none of that.11 A consideration of Riezler’s earnest effort to bridge art history and music theory seems a fitting contribution—​on the part of an art historian—​to a volume dedicated to Kevin Korsyn, a music theorist who has thought deeply about disciplinary configurations and demonstrated the efficacy of drawing on conceptual tools from outside the field of music theory so as to sharpen the perception of practices within. Concerns over disciplinary isolation raised a century ago have hardly abated, and the countermeasures today are, if anything, even more vigorous, with institutionally backed collaborative initiatives, cross-​disciplinary centers and programs, joint appointments, dual degrees, and the like. Still, speaking of the humanities, it seems that serious interdisciplinary work is generally a matter of commitment on the part of intrepid individuals. Only the bold are prepared to educate themselves in alien structures of thought and alternative historiographies, and to take the risk of being fully understood only by those similarly cross-​trained; most follow the more normal practice of studying cultural products outside the domain of their training from within their discipline. In 1930 Riezler, trained in multiple fields, delivered his interdisciplinary paper before a rarified academic audience. Yet he did so as one working in the public sphere, positioned to watch as conservative ideologies came to wreak havoc in the realm of the arts. He redeployed ideas swirling around him in the academic and extra-​academic spheres so as to make the case for contemporary artistic developments, his effort driven by a sense of cultural mission. 7.1  Riezler: Munich, Stettin, Munich Born into a Catholic family in Munich, the “city of art,” educated at the Luitpold-​Gymnasium and Ludwig-​Maximilians-​Universität, Walter Riezler (1878–​1965) developed into a strikingly versatile intellect. He launched his professional career before World War I and made his chief contributions in the vital decade before the Nazi Machtergreifung in 1933, when his career was abruptly derailed. Throughout his long life, he would move between art and music, shifting his focus according to circumstance.12 At university, Riezler first took up the study of German literature, classical philology, and philosophy. He would credit the young neo-​Kantian Hans Cornelius with having played a decisive role in his formation. Restless, he made the move to classical archaeology/​art history and submitted a dissertation in 1902 on “The Parthenon and Vase Painting: Studies in the History of Attic Vases.”13 His Doktorvater, Adolf Furtwängler, was a sternly rigorous scholar whose many publications, notably Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture,

234  Elizabeth Sears had field-​ shaping impact14; as head of Munich’s Antikensammlungen, Furtwängler gave Riezler the opportunity to work as an assistant and thereby to acquire years of museum experience. Riezler had soon been introduced into the Furtwängler household, where he came to know the son, Wilhelm, a musical prodigy destined to become one of the great conductors of the earlier twentieth century. Early on, the two played sonatas together, Riezler being an accomplished violinist and pianist, and he briefly served as in-​house tutor; he and Wilhelm would long remain in contact, discussing and debating matters musical, sometimes heatedly.15 Once he had completed the dissertation, Riezler turned to music (1904–​06) and studied with Felix Mottl (the composer and conductor, famed for his interpretations of Wagner, especially Tristan) and Max Reger, learning much from this prominent composer steeped in the Germanic tradition. Yet forces were drawing Riezler toward the visual arts. Becoming tutor to the son of the classicizing sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand—​writer of the influential study The Problem of Form (1893)—​he became a member of a household that moved between Italy and Germany. Coming to know Hildebrand was for him “a defining experience”16; as early as 1906, just as he was becoming a voice in Munich’s artistic circles, Riezler began to champion the artist and his work.17 Soon after, he became involved in preparations for “Munich 1908”—​ an ambitious exhibition displaying everything “made in Munich,” from art and architecture to domestic furnishings, consumer goods, and industrial design.18 An enduring interest in the applied arts and a passionate belief in the cultural role of “design” had been kindled. Riezler became a member of the German Werkbund as it was founded in 1907, thus aligning himself with a group of artists, designers, art critics, and manufacturers advocating for reform in design and production, seeking to forge alliances between art and industry, rejecting historicism, and urging the embrace of forms apt for and expressive of the conditions of modernity.19 Munich had nurtured Riezler. In 1911, writing about the city’s distinctive culture and its “modern movement” as seen in painting, architecture, and the applied arts, he revealed himself to be a temperate modernist, praising Munich, where revolutionary currents had been quietly absorbed. He compared it to Berlin and Vienna, where exhibitions still tended toward modernist extremes. Munich valued quality above novelty, retained its fondness for older styles, reveled in calm, objective “form.”20 In 1910 the young Bavarian moved to northern Germany, having been appointed director of the City Museum of Stettin (today Szczecin in Poland),21 a post he would hold till 1933. An active director, he amalgamated disparate collections, supported local artists, and arranged strategic purchases in modern and avant-​garde art. The acquisitions’ list is long and included a late work by Vincent van Gogh (Allee bei Arles); paintings by Erich Heckel and Lyonel Feininger; graphic works by Kokoschka and Klee; small sculpture by Maillol, Hildebrand, and Barlach; and a controversial crucifix by Ludwig Gies that had been vandalized before its removal from the Marienkirche in Lübeck in 1922.22 Often meeting with conservative opposition, he took up the task of educating

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  235 the public in modernist currents, organizing lectures and exhibitions. In the Hitler year, it all came to an end. The authorities in Stettin first put Riezler on leave and then, in 1934, retired him permanently, claiming that his concept of art was at odds with that of the state.23 A measure of his success as director can perhaps be found in the number of artworks confiscated by the new regime as “degenerate art” (entartete Kunst), beginning in 1937: at present count, some 1081 items left the museum in the Nazi era.24 All along Riezler had continued to serve the Werkbund. He edited the journal it sponsored, Die Form, when it was first launched in 1922—​only to be aborted soon after, owing to the German inflation; and he became involved again after its relaunch in 1925, serving as editor-​in-​chief from 1927 to 1933. Between 1922 and 1932, he contributed to the journal over 50 essays and exhibition reviews.25 Collectively, they show him following contemporary currents with lively interest. He turned his attention to everything from architecture (houses, housing, furniture) to stage design, gardens, ceramics, film, and neon signs; he would treat shipbuilding and the Niederfinow ship lift (“engineering aesthetics”); in an essay of 1926 on “Ford” he considered the threat that the Fordist working process posed to culture, as signaled by the sheer ugliness of the cars produced; then there were pieces on art schools and museums; and he broached abstract issues: “Quality and Form” (1922), “Nature and the Machine” (1922), “Religion and Art in the Present” (1922), “The Unity of the World” (1927), “The Atonal World” (1929), and “Eternal—​Timeless” (1931) among them. When he first took up the editorship of Die Form in 1922, Riezler provided a manifesto-​like preface, a rumination on “form” itself. The title of the journal, he suggested, had nothing to do with the formalist aesthetic that opposes form to content, nor is it a concept serving to distinguish art from science, ethics, and nature. Form is not to be viewed as the opposite of expression but as the expression of inner life; indeed it is life itself, both in nature and in art: Formtrieb, the drive to form, courses through the world. Riezler here articulated a conviction that may be said to underlie his work, situated as it was in the zone between the academic and the popular, the historical and the critical: “The image of the world as conceived by the artist possesses no fewer features of highest truth and wisdom than do the systems of the sciences and the philosophies.”26 Published in 1922, this first statement in the journal stands in stark contrast to the last he contributed, published in 1932. In “The Struggle for German Culture,”27 written in the wake of the shutdown of the Bauhaus in Dessau on political grounds, Riezler showed himself dispirited and anxious: the goals of the Werkbund (its struggle less against an enemy than for a cause) had met with at best modest success, and reactionary propaganda was gaining ground: “Is it really necessary to affirm for the hundredth time that modern architecture has nothing to do with Bolshevism?” he asked. Calmly he debated recent ideas about race, suggesting that race does not guarantee “character” and praising the artistic achievements of Hans von Marées (a half-​Jew) and Max Liebermann (a Jew). Worriedly he voiced the need for

236  Elizabeth Sears Germany to cultivate “openness to the world”—​long a German virtue—​and to resist the narrowing tendencies pressing in from all sides. His anxiety was well founded. In 1933 he was removed, too, from the editorship of Die Form, and the Werkbund was incorporated into the Reich Chamber of the Visual Arts; in 1934 the journal came under Nazi control and soon folded.28 Riezler’s career in the visual arts was effectively at an end. He returned to Bavaria in 1934, taking up residency in Ebenhausen, near Munich, and shifted his efforts fully toward music.29 First he retooled, taking up the study of musicology at the university with Rudolf von Ficker, a specialist in early music.30 In 1936, he published what would be his major musicological achievement: the monograph Beethoven, with a brief introduction by Wilhelm Furtwängler, intended for the educated layperson. Many times reprinted—​indeed still in print—​it was translated into English as early as 1938. Riezler here offered a life of the composer; a rumination on interpretation (“Beethoven and Absolute Music”), in the course of it singling out Schenker for praise; a survey of the major works by genre; and, in an appendix, a 35-​page analysis of the first movement of the Eroica Symphony (“An Attempt at an Analysis of the Organic Structure”).31 After the war, in 1946, doubtless on the strength of this book, he was appointed honorary professor in music history (Honorarprofessor für neuere Musikgeschichte) at Munich; and in 1949 he was elected to the music section of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, thus once again positioned to advocate for the arts. In 1947, with Germany in ruins, he published a slim volume on the unity of the arts, Einheit der Künste, in which he would again broach the problem of the relations between art and music that he had first tackled in extenso in 1930. To the Weimar-​era event in Hamburg, and to the paper Riezler then delivered, we now turn. 7.2  The Fourth Aesthetics Congress, Hamburg, 1930 In Hamburg there had been enthusiasm for hosting a congress at the new university, founded in 1919. An early planning discussion took place on December 11, 1927: Cassirer presided and a good dozen local scholars were present, representing the fields of philosophy, psychology, literature, drama, and art.32 Dessoir, as president of the sponsoring society, had traveled from Berlin to join the meeting, along with the musicologist Werner Wolffheim, its secretary. Aby Warburg, seminally important art historian and cultural historian, honorary professor at the university, made his presence felt. A fervent advocate for boundary crossings among disciplines, he was founder and director of Hamburg’s Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (Warburg Library for Cultural Science; hereafter, KBW)—​a library linking the domains of knowledge, created to support the study of shifts in human orientation over time through the investigation of the survival of the classical tradition.33 Erwin Panofsky, Ordinarius in art history at the university and a member of the Warburg circle was also present.34 Music would be represented in the final

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  237 committee by Robert Müller-​Hartmann—​composer, teacher, music critic—​but at the first meeting Wölffheim stood in for the field. He was just then preparing to sell off his famous library; Warburg’s lively interest in the sister field is shown in an entry in his institutional diary: “The most important music historical library is to be sold. One must take a look! That would be something!! For Hamburg it would at the same time powerfully advance the claim for a university chair in music history.”35 The “problem” at the heart of the problem-​congress would shift, giving Riezler occasion to speak. Initially, when the event was scheduled for October 1929, the timing was seen to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Lessing’s birth. Because the author of the classic Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry (1766) had served for three years as dramaturge in the Hamburg National Theatre, founded in 1767, it seemed obvious that the congress should be devoted to a nexus of themes around word and image, and the performed and pictorial arts. When a year’s postponement proved necessary, the topic became “The Configuration of Space and Time in Art,” highlighting two of Kant’s a priori categories. In 1929 the local committee announced the proposed program in broad strokes in the ZÄK.36 There were to be talks of philosophical cast, the two named being Cassirer’s on “Mythic, Aesthetic and Theoretical Space” and Albert Görland’s on “The Temporal Modes as Style-​Forming Factors.” The session on psychology was to focus on “space-​ time problems in the art of children, primitives, and the mentally ill.” Further sessions would center on the visual arts, literature, and music, and there would be a few papers of a more general character. This program would be largely followed. As the congress opened, Cassirer, welcoming the participants, emphasized that “space” and “time” were to be viewed neither from any dogmatically fixed standpoint nor from the perspective of any individual aesthetic tendency or art-​theoretical interest; rather, the aim was to foster reciprocal illumination and mutual fertilization among relevant fields. The program shows that art and music both had significant representation. The philosopher and art historian Edgar Wind—​Panofsky’s first doctoral student, on the staff of the KBW, and preparing a Habilitation under Cassirer—​delivered a now classic paper as a memorial tribute to Warburg, who had died in 1929: “Warburg’s Concept of Kulturwissenschaft and its Meaning for Aesthetics.”37 Other art historians who gave papers included Wolfgang Stechow (Göttingen), Alfred Dorner (Hannover), and Dagobert Frey (Vienna). Stechow would make an attempt to bring art and music together in a talk on “Space and Time in Graphic and Musical Illustration,” but when Wind, an incisive critic, suggested that the link with music he posited was a metaphorical one, he withdrew the formulation “musical space.”38 Three musicologists convened in a session on the final day of the congress: Max Schneider (Halle) spoke on “Raum und Musik” and Hans Mersmann (Berlin), on “Zeit und Musik.” Riezler opened the session.39

238  Elizabeth Sears 7.3  Riezler on “The New Sense of Space in Art and Music” As he prepared to advocate for the shockingly new artistic forms that had come into being in the previous three decades, Riezler conceded the coexistence of opposing, apparently irreconcilable trends. He noted that those who did not simply judge the new artistic trends negatively, who did not merely dismiss them as a symptom of cultural decline, usually sought explanation in the chaotic conditions of a “transitional” period, seeing the same multiplicity pervading all spheres of contemporary intellectual–​spiritual life (geistiges Leben). Riezler set out to demonstrate that a commonality linked at least some of the trends, a commonality he located in a new “sense of space.” His method, as it unfolded over the course of the presentation, had both synchronic and diachronic dimensions. He used the concept of Raumgefühl both to align artistic works produced at a given time and to draw period distinctions over time, his purview being European cultural history (not only German), reaching as far back as the Gothic era. Riezler started in the Italian Renaissance, beginning with painting, and signaled the significance of the rise of linear perspective. This paradigm, he would suggest, dominated, despite all changes in “style,” for four centuries, until ca. 1900. It was a well-​calculated move. So pervasive was the assumption that the Renaissance period marked a decisive turn in European culture, a shift in the human spirit, that the importance of the development of a rule-​ based system based on a unified viewpoint was not difficult to argue. In a supporting footnote he noted three convergent efforts of 1925 to deal with problem of linear perspective: a lecture by Panofsky at the KBW, published as Perspective as Symbolic Form; lectures by Dagobert Frey, which formed the basis of his “extraordinary” book Gothic and Renaissance as the Foundations of our Weltanschauung, on which Riezler would rely; and his own essay on “Architecture at the Crossroads,” published in Paul Tillich’s series, Kairos.40 Panofsky and Frey were both present at the conference.41 Panofsky would have heard himself credited with pointing to the arbitrariness of linear perspective, a system never fully reconcilable with “reality.”42 But for Riezler, the key shift was that, for the first time, the standpoint of the viewer was acknowledged. The very process of viewing and the needs and demands of the receiving eye were taken into account, precisely in this period when the individual had won a central position in the world. Riezler brought home the point through contrast. Space in Gothic painting had had no existence in itself; it makes no sense to consider its “unity.” It was disposed in relation to the figures and events portrayed, space gaining reality as the intensity of depicted life increased. By contrast, Renaissance pictorial space became unified: the viewer could now see into depth, observe figures moving in a space existing outside the requirements of depicted events. Riezler made explicit reference to the work of the art historian Heinrich Wölfflin, and also to his mentor Hildebrand, “who first based a whole theory of art on the laws of the process of seeing.”43 Cassirer’s Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy (1927) helped him think about new

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  239 subject–​object relations and the principle of “harmony”—​the relations of parts to whole—​as he turned to architecture.44 In Renaissance buildings, as in paintings, he argued, architectonic space was shaped from a standpoint, “for the observing eye”: architectural forms became guiding lines that helped the observer to grasp the space in its entirety, even when the viewer was in motion. In contrast, the forms of Gothic architecture were the functional expression of inner forces; the mystery of Gothic space was revealed only in movement, visible unity not to be grasped from any single standpoint. Both Renaissance and Gothic space obeyed rules of harmony, but only in the Renaissance were the rules made directly apparent, in their entirety, to the viewer; Gothic harmony, by contrast, rested in itself, so to speak, as divine existence. Put another way, in Gothic structures, a human presence contributed nothing to the existence of the space, which remained the same in essence whether the structure was empty or filled. In Renaissance structures, the human presence was so necessary that, when the space was unfilled, something essential was lacking. Riezler went on to claim that the same could be said of Baroque architecture. He freely granted the stylistic distinctions: movement in place of calm, “open” in place of “closed” form,45 but space was still designed “for the viewer,” directional lines still guided the eye, and a human-​oriented harmony reigned. The Munich native brought up the eighteenth-​century spaces designed by the Asam brothers, thinking of structures like the local church of St. Johann Nepomuk, with their intentionally deceptive illusionistic spaces. Even in these, he argued, the spaces stand in fully defined relation to the viewer. He dismissed as misguided recent efforts to show an inner affinity between northern Baroque and Gothic architecture. Riezler returned to painting. Passionate life filled pictorial space in the Baroque, sometimes breaking out of the boundaries of the picture toward infinity. Yet even when linear perspective was no longer in play, space was constructed according to laws of unified seeing and encouraged the movement of the eye in depth, the foreground remaining distinct from the background. It would be possible to extrapolate a ground plan from a dynamic composition by Tintoretto, just as from an earlier work by Raphael, and locate the individual forms upon it.46 Rembrandt’s compositions, too, were based on a clearly disposed three-​dimensional space. And if Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Titian, in their old age, allowed pictorial structures to falter and planes to interpenetrate, these were exceptional acts; and if El Greco’s work—​having nothing in common with Renaissance spatial conceptions—​likewise stands apart, it had little impact on broader developments. Riezler placed Romantic painting in the same trajectory (pace Dorner).47 Approaching the year 1900, he could see in the work of Hans von Marées, long one of his heroes, a last, powerful development of the Renaissance spatial idea.48 This was true of Cézanne as well, even if the latter employed very different means to create harmony and clarity for the observing eye. And yet in certain of Cézanne’s works new goals are evident, precisely in the realm of pictorial space, no longer to be grasped through a unified movement of the eye in depth.

240  Elizabeth Sears Riezler broke off, feeling he had made his case: a deep structural commonality, a sense of space founded on Weltanschauung, drew the visual arts of four centuries into a unity. Now he could turn to music. Building on thoughts he had sketched in a short essay published in Die Form in 1929—​“The Atonal World”49—​ he cautiously posited a parallel phenomenon, one in evidence over the final three of the four centuries just treated. It was around 1600 that the discovery of tonal cadence—​the recognition of the relations among the tonic, dominant, and subdominant, founded in the natural occurrence of overtones—​provided the basis for a “functional harmonics” that opened music up to formal and spiritual possibilities hitherto undreamed of. Harmony had long been known in the West in the sense that the significance of the triad had been appreciated. The decisive step came with the discovery of the principle of harmonic progression and its extension to whole phrases and pieces. Riezler traced a history: after a struggle, the old church modes gave way to the diatonic system, in which the half-​tone occupies the most important functional place in the scale, making possible a wholly new strengthening of the melodic line. In Bach’s music, a strong harmonic functionality is evident. The listener now experienced a consolidated architectonic structure, because each line was determined in accord with the rules of tonality. Riezler here set himself against Ernst Kurth, who in an “otherwise very useful” book on Bach’s polyphony, focused solely on the linear elements of Bach’s style.50 The central place of tonality in the ensuing “classical” period, Riezler indicated, is obvious, in that the architectonic element is self-​evidently present in such features as the dominance of regular phrases and the elevation of the primary (tonic) over the secondary triads. This is evident even in late Beethoven. And if this composer departed from tonality in certain works, this should not be taken as a sign of a suprapersonal stylistic shift but as the expression of aging genius, a phenomenon Riezler had noted in the pictorial arts. Tectonic structure was then maintained in Romantic harmonies: the “colorful” element introduced into music by Schubert may seem to have loosened or abolished tectonic structure, but no: a deeper examination shows that “mediant” chord progressions are bound to tonal rules; not only sophisticated analysis but also “correct” listening reveals these behind the colorful veil. The tonal basis of Schumann’s harmonies is clear; it is even more important to recognize the same in Wagner’s work, above all in the chromaticism of Tristan und Isolde. In making the point that in this work the richness of chromatic transition and alteration stands almost without exception in the service of tonality, Riezler referred to his training under Max Reger, who, he said, would open his instruction in theory with the famed first chords of the Prelude to Act I of Tristan. In Riezler’s view, the “Todesmotiv” (the mysterious appearance of the A-​major chord in the key of C minor) was to be explained tonally and could be heard tonally by the truly musical person who had internalized the style of Tristan.51 Here Riezler added a footnote drawing on Schenkerian terminology, making reference to his concept of “tonicization.”52 Continuing with a brief mention of Bruckner, he ended with Reger, saying that, however difficult the

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  241 grasp of tonal connections might be, even for attentive and schooled listeners, Reger himself subscribed to the idea that “there is no such thing as composition apart from ‘progressions’ according to tonal cadences.”53 Riezler was now placed to proceed to the core question. Despite stylistic changes, a unified perception of space had dominated in the visual arts from ca. 1500 to 1900, and a unified harmonic conception, based on the discovery of tonal cadence, had dominated in music from ca. 1600 to 1900. Is this a chance parallel with no deeper significance? Or is it a fundamental correspondence from which conclusions of a more general cultural-​philosophical kind may be drawn? Can we rightly place Raumanschauung in relation to Tonalität? Does it make sense to speak of Tonraum, “tonal space,” as Dagobert Frey and Hans Mersmann had done?—​citing two figures present at the congress.54 Riezler started to make his case for the utility of the concept Tonraum, noting first that, in speaking of musical structures, he had deliberately not used the word Raum up to this point, but that he had been unable to avoid using phrases derived from the spatial sphere: tektonischer Gliederung (tectonic organization), farbiger Harmonik (colorful harmony), Verschleierung der Konturen (blurring of contours), impressionistischer Zerfaserung (impressionistic unraveling). Since our language is generally oriented toward an optical worldview, he observed, these need not be taken as more than pleasant turns of phrase. Similarly the use of the word Tonraum might make no deep claim to a consubstantiality (Wesenseinheit) with the space of seeing and touching and bodily movement. Yet Riezler felt he could defend the consubstantialist understanding. The expression “tonal space,” he believed, was not only legitimate but also illuminating with respect to the cross-​sensory connections he wished to explore. He made three supporting arguments, different in kind.55 1 The idea that music was originally “space-​less” (raumlos)—​purely an extension in time, one-​dimensional, “linear”—​may stand, he said, if we discount the fact that music is transmitted and received in space. Yet, “passing over the intermediary steps,” if we compare a one-​dimensional line, such as the liturgical “Credo in unum deum,” with the same line in Bach’s B-​Minor Mass, the significant novelty of the latter seems to lie not only in the fact that other lines, each with its own tonal character, are added, but that each note in the original line is now assigned a fixed place in the harmonic ordering structure (“ein fester Platz in dem harmonischen Ordnungsgefüge”). This provides a dimension of depth (Tiefendimension), and each note acquires, in addition to its original meaning, a new meaning according to its position in this deeper dimension. 2 Riezler felt the second argument might make his meaning more clear. The spatial structure that prevailed in art and architecture since the Renaissance, ordered according to well-​defined principles, existed as an “idea” beyond any individual realization or any specific content. That is, while pictorial space was only conceivable when filled with content, still, structurally, the space remained the same, and pictures or buildings could only be realized within

242  Elizabeth Sears this spatial idea (Raumidee). A similar general existence, Riezler posited, could be ascribed to tonal-​harmonic structure. This was even more significant in music, he believed, because pictorial space refers to a general reality outside of art, while Tonraum, though based on the natural occurrence of overtones, does not. Riezler here revealed his marveling admiration for three centuries of European musical achievement: “Tonal Tonraum is one of the most sublime ideas ever conceived and felt, the realization of the most perfect, self-​contained harmony known to mankind.”56 3 In advancing the third argument, Riezler said he had already made the point that the melodic character of music changed under the influence of tonality. Melody, taking the word in its broadest sense, and ultimately the entire freely constructed and organically developed work, he suggested, now became an organized whole, a Gestalt, and thus participated in the fundamental Goethean process of Umgestaltung (transformation)—​achieved in the late classical style, above all in Beethoven, and in a way that seems like a direct expression of the deepest connection with nature.57 This transformation—​ generally called “thematic work” (tematische Arbeit)—​never applies to the linear-​melodic alone but always occurs also in the sphere of harmonic space, and only through the binding of the melodic with the harmonic is a transformation possible. Riezler went on to draw the analogy to art, likening the indissoluble bond between musical Gestalt and tonality to that between classical pictorial Gestalt and clearly configured space. In both cases, the “Gestalt” can only breathe and unfold in “space.” Riezler now had a basis from which to proceed; he had correlated the unified “dimensionizing” of pictorial space through the introduction of linear perspective and the creation of “tonal space” through the discovery of tonality—​ two acts of the human spirit directed toward the ordering and control of the world, two systems that he believed held sway, despite changes in style, through ca. 1900.58 Now a little beyond the halfway mark in his paper, calling his previous remarks “rather protracted” but “necessary,” Riezler turned to the analysis, critique, and defense of recent developments in art and music.59 He first asked whether “the new” (das Neue) had exhausted itself in a negation of what came before or if one could justifiably speak in a positive sense of a “new sense of space.” His focus, he indicated, would be tight: he would offer no general treatment but ask only whether there was in contemporary art and music something that might be compared, in fundamental significance, with Renaissance “space.” In this case, he led with music. The initial impression, he granted, is one of pure negation, astonishing and significant in its revolutionary boldness: a strike at the roots of three centuries of musical life. The first attack against tonality came around the year 1900. Debussy, who began with a free impressionism, employing tonality in a coloristic sense, came, in his later works, to replace “diatony” with the whole-​tone

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  243 scale: horizontally seen, this meant no articulation through the leading-​tone, vertically seen, no functional harmony. All tectonic articulations were set aside; the melodic tones were of equal value and importance. One cannot speak of different “directions” in space; the clearly dimensioned Tonraum no longer existed. In its place—​varying according to the rhythmic, dynamic, and melodic character of the music—​came (as in Debussy’s piano pieces) a delightful web whose flatness seems emphasized through colorful nuances; Riezler was reminded of modern weavings. Or there came (as in Debussy’s opera Pelléas and Mélisande and, no less impressively, Pfitzner’s setting of Goethe’s “An den Mond”) a darkness with flashes of mysterious, directionless lights. This was a darkness, Riezler suggested, diametrically opposed to Rembrandt’s murky but firmly structured, figure-​filled space. However impressive whole-​tone music could be in certain cases, in Riezler’s view, its domain was narrow, and, even when mixed with chromatic or tonal components, it soon exhausted its possibilities. He saw the same narrowing of possibilities (not in combinations but in living expression and Gestaltung) in the Hauer–​Schönberg 12-​tone system, conceived about ten years later. Here again the notes are given equal value; again there is no functional emphasis on one tone over the other, nor is there harmonic-​spatial dimensioning, for chords are determined only through the voice-​leading of the different lines, not through any kind of harmonic rule. The principle of formation–​transformation (Gestaltung–​Umgestaltung) has no place: the “thematic” sequence, once fixed, serves for the whole of a piece; it may be rhythmically altered or retrograded, or inverted, but the intervallic structure must remain intact. Ultimately, Riezler felt he had to agree with Heinz Tiessen, who granted this system only the significance of a “thematic-​ constructive-​ compositional technique” that could never take the place of the old tonality.60 What did this mean for Tonraum? While in whole-​tone music, chords still had significance as a kind of colorful fluidum, this was not true in 12-​tone music: with all weight placed on the melodic lines (each of them formed strictly according to rule, proceeding in full freedom beside and against one another), no longer was harmony (Zusammenklang) assigned any spiritual significance (seelische Bedeutung); Schönberg, it is not surprising, warned against accidental vertical consonances. The most creative work of recent decades in the sphere of atonal music, in Riezler’s view, was not beholden to this or to any other strong theory that radically negated that which had come before. Rather, he saw certain tendencies apparent in the final stages of tonal music taking on increasing significance and ultimately providing a new foundation for music as a whole. Around 1900 various incursions into the domain of tonal space were to be seen; Riezler briefly compared the efforts of Richard Strauss, Mahler, Pfitzner, Schönberg of the early D-​Major string quartet, Rudi Stefan, and the early Hindemith. Spatial structure was relaxed: on the one hand, the vertical lost significance in relation to the horizontal lines, and on the other, the functional force of the chords was weakened (with these, whether consonant or

244  Elizabeth Sears dissonant, now often only contributing to the expressive power of the line). Still it had not been clear whether something fundamentally new would emerge. This “newness,” with respect to tonal space, Riezler found in the later works of Hindemith, whom he regarded as the strongest creative talent among the younger generation (and features of his style could be discovered in the work of others, including Philipp Jarnach). Riezler described the elements he regarded as significant. Now the lines are completely independent; no longer does one unified totality, even one that is non-​chordal, lie beneath the nexus of melodic lines. Yet every line has certain links to tonality, even if it is not the same tonality over the entire extent of the line, but instead changes frequently and quickly; this tonality is still essential for the formal shaping of the line—​ thus offering a stark contrast to Schönbergian lines. Riezler again cited Hans Mersmann, who had referred to the principle in question as “polytonality,” using a term that Pfitzner, too, had used on occasion. And indeed now, said Riezler, it was a matter of a multiplicity of tonalities, not only in the individual lines, but also, and almost always, in the chords created by the different lines: every instant, so to speak, belongs to several tonalities. Sometimes this strikes the ear directly, as in many places in Hindemith’s Marienleben (e.g., near the end of “Christi Geburt”), where definite, even though free and venturesome, cadencing formations are misaligned with respect to one another in the different lines; for the most part a tonality is not maintained in a line for so long that one could speak of a genuine cadence. Nonetheless, the forms are such that we hear them tonally, owing to their origin in the tonal realm and in accord with our habit of hearing tonally. What is important for Riezler is that all the lines refer to the Tonraum in some way. But this is a Tonraum in which the “dimensionizing” is not so simple as in tonal music. Riezler opted for the term “multidimensional” (mehrdimensional). Now the different “directions” in the space no longer coalesce in a clear and unambiguous structure but take on independent identity and fight with one another. To illustrate the nature of the new chordal harmonies and the behavior of melodic lines (which, because “frozen,” can no longer participate in the process of Umgestaltung), Riezler referred to a passage in the Marienleben where Hindemith repeated a melodic figure ten times with no change but each time with a different chordal underpinning (Unterbauung). Having characterized the operation of multidimensionality in “posttonal music” (nachtonale Musik), Riezler returned to the visual arts, again seeking structural similarities.61 Here, too, he suggested, the new movement began with a negation of earlier space. In Impressionism and even in Neoimpressionism—​ witness the pointillist paintings of Seurat—​ there were still solid spatial structures, while in later works by Monet or Christian Rohlfs, it is often no longer possible to determine the spatial situation of individual pictorial elements: a nondimensional space was created that Riezler found analogous to the mysteriously dark and unclear background against which the melodic lines emerge in Debussy’s later works. And similarly, this was an art whose possibilities were limited. Yet now Riezler paused, worried that he might have gone

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  245 too far in playing the game of seeking comparisons (at this point he brought in Alfred Einstein’s warning). He noted that pictorial flatness can simply be a matter of the architectural situation (Hodler relinquished depth when painting murals), or derive from East Asian influence, as with Van Gogh and Munch, and Matisse as well, whose theory of the pictorial surface would guide a generation of artists. Riezler thus chose to focus on Cubism, which he regarded as the first and least compromising expression of a “new sense of space” that found its earliest expression in Cézanne but soon proceeded in new directions. In the work of the Picasso circle, it was not a question of simplifying or rationalizing older pictorial form, but rather denying it altogether. In these works, the important thing was not that the “subject” is hardly recognizable but that the ordering structure itself is impenetrable. Flat and spatial elements intersect. A “reading” from front to back is excluded. At the same time, this is no unordered chaos, nor is it the product of a disintegration of form, as many thought when first viewing these works. Here pictorial space was no longer created to meet the needs of the observing eye; it had nothing to do with the “static” space of the Renaissance or the dynamic space of Gothic or Baroque art. It is a space of becoming, of sliding, where the different “directions” mutually influence and deflect one another. Pictorially speaking, it is a “multidimensional” space; Riezler suggested it could equally be called an “atonal” space.62 The new sense of space could be detected in works of various styles. Riezler saw it in a raw form in the early work of the Futurists. It was manifest, too, in the landscapes and architectonic visions of Lyonel Feininger, an artist who was also a composer of some remarkable fugues for the organ—​“Bach translated into the cubistic” (a description that Riezler felt might apply, too, to some of Stravinsky’s work). The new pictorial space is seen even when painting stands closer to nature, as in Kokoschka’s landscapes or the late works of Lovis Corinth. Here the ground planes interpenetrate and an uncanny inner life seems to unsettle the space. Often it is as if space hides its structure from the viewer or causes the viewer to plummet: Riezler cited an essay in Die Form by Fritz Wichert who had likened the sense of space in Max Beckmann’s landscapes and cityscapes to that of a pilot taking a nosedive.63 Paul Klee’s visionary spaces are very different, yet they are not flat, decorative, or two-​dimensional. The artistic movements Constructivism and Suprematism aim, too, to conquer three-​dimensionally ordered space. El Lissitzky, the most significant of the group, grounding his work theoretically, claimed to have crossed over into the realm of “non-​Euclidian pan-​geometry.” Riezler took Panofsky’s objections to Lissitsky’s theoretical construction to heart: every empirical space is necessarily three-​dimensional.64 And yet here, and in all the described trends, he thought it possible to speak of “multidimensionality,” to recognize a new sense of space, no longer grasped through simple three-​dimensional seeing. As he moved to a conclusion, Riezler passed through other domains of art and cultural life, looking for further evidence of commonalities that would support the claim of cultural coherence and give authority to individual products. In contemporary architecture, which, too, had turned from the

246  Elizabeth Sears formal principles and spatial outlook of the Renaissance, less is conceded to the “needs of the eye.” In place of closed, clearly proportioned spatial forms, parallel and interpenetrating spaces were now favored, opening to themselves and to the unformed space beyond. Mies van der Rohe’s German pavilion at the Barcelona world’s fair is Riezler’s example of an exemplary work—​a work “filled with inner music”—​showcasing the new spatial reality.65 Only the efforts of Le Corbusier come close. The aberrant note in the German pavilion was a bronze sculpture by Georg Kolbe, a figural work nice enough in itself, but belonging to an older world of space. Sculpture generally, Riezler reflected, was more firmly bound to tradition, its subject being constant, but even here the new sense of space was in evidence: witness the work of Archipenko and his circle, the closest to Cubism, or Lehmbruck and Barlach, closer to nature. Touching on literature, Riezler drew further analogies, seeing multidimensionality and atonality in the work of Strindberg and Maeterlinck. The same was true in artistically serious film. Everywhere, he found evidence of a turning away from the spirit of the Renaissance. In politics and economics he saw a striving for suprapersonal connections,66 while philosophy was recognizing the existence of a domain outside human reason and focused on lived experience in the broadest sense.67 The natural sciences had come to doubt even the validity of causality. The sliding space of the fourth dimension, he suggested, might be linked to atonality in music and to the new sense of space in visual art. Riezler brought his ruminations to an end with the thought that, if the connections he claimed did exist, the phenomenon of the “atonal” was to be assigned a fundamental importance in “our cultural development” and could not be taken as a symptom of decline. He conceded that it was fair to ask if it might prove to be a “transitional” phenomenon, potentially becoming incomprehensible should the cultural situation change. The question arose as to whether a “classicism” was possible within the “atonal world,” that is, whether here, too, the possibility of perfection within a self-​contained form existed. He felt he could answer in the affirmative, however different an “atonal classic” might look from previous works so designated. Some people today, he noted, saw the beginnings of a new classicism in such works as the most recent paintings of Picasso, the remarkable sculpture of Brancusi, and certain buildings and plans by Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier; and many were expecting truly classic works to come from the astonishingly gifted Hindemith. Emphatically, he would not look for a developing new classicism in the recent artistic movement the “New Objectivity” (Neue Sachlichkeit); for Riezler this was but a countermovement against Expressionism, its forms thus deriving from negation.68 Still, for ultimate judgement, he acknowledged, we must wait. It will depend on whether the formative power (gestaltende Kraft) in our culture is great enough that the new Weltbild is able to perfect and consolidate its potentials, or whether that which we today experience is but a last heroic attempt to provide a safeguard

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  247 against the dismantling (Entformung) that threatens, which would spell the death of all true culture. 7.4  The “Unity of the Arts” Revisited: Riezler’s Postwar Reflections Sixteen years later, after the violent destruction of much of German culture, Riezler returned to the themes of 1930, with a new slant. Now approaching his 70th year, having been deprived of an institutional home during the Nazi years, he, like others of his generation, would be called in to help restore a culture. In 1946 he delivered a lecture, in a city in ruins, to mark the occasion of the simultaneous reopening of Munich’s three Kunsthochschulen: the schools of music, the visual arts, and the applied arts (the latter two soon to be amalgamated). Developed into an essay entitled Einheit der Künste (Unity of the Arts), it was published in 1947 in a series devoted to the intellectual and artistic life in Munich, Geistiges München. Riezler’s audience in 1930 had been academic; in 1946 he addressed artists, teachers of art, and lovers of art, and his starting point was a contrast between the academic and the professional domains.69 Possibly he was thinking back to the prewar aesthetics conference when he gave his sense of things. For centuries, he said, the concept of the universitas literarum, the all-​embracing unity of the sciences (Wissenschaften), found expression in the foundation of the “universities,” and today a conviction, lost sight of the nineteenth century, is making headway, namely that many threads link the disciplines, however autonomous, and that these are worth pursuing. A corresponding universitas artium, however, is not recognized. When people refer to the “unity of the arts,” it is usually to oppose the world of beautiful appearances to that of reality. Riezler set out to counter this limited conception. He launched into a broadly based survey of the arts of mankind in an effort to establish that artistic creation is a universal human impulse, primal, undeniable, variously manifested. The unity of the arts, he would argue, as he had in the past, was to be found in shared formal structures: at each developmental stage artistic form is dependent on the spiritually vital structure of the time. His task now was to lend hope, demonstrate continuity, and give direction in a chaotic present. He seems to have drawn upon his conviction, as expressed in 1922, that “The image of the world as conceived by the artist possesses no fewer features of highest truth and wisdom than do the systems of the sciences and the philosophies.”70 Riezler opened his treatment of art with cave paintings, anything but “primitive,” created through dream-​like reflex: these reveal the Urtrieb, the basic drive to art.71 From this root eventually came functional forms of astonishing beauty, weapons and utensils, some in “eternal” forms, never improved upon, though always refined by new materials and techniques. Not all developments were healthy: an “entartete Prunktrieb”—​ the decadent desire for lavish magnificence—​can be recognized at various times: such works as Cellini’s salt cellar or figure-​rich Chinese porcelain, however much we may admire the skill involved, are today not valued as greatly as the simple but felt forms of older

248  Elizabeth Sears ceramics. His alliance with the ideals of the Werkbund comes through: we have learned, he claimed, to recognize the inner beauty of such forms and to see their connection with nature—​a connection endangered as part of the general cultural crisis of the nineteenth century and the inroads made by technology and the machine. Now, with the abandonment of standards set by classicism, we are able to appreciate a range of styles, including the Egyptian, where structural unity may first have been achieved. Speaking of past millennia, advancing art historical truisms, Riezler noted that any artist can only work within the possibilities of a given “style” (i.e., with the structural principles of an era); the artist gives form to a vivid perception of nature, and artistic quality is measured by the degree of perfection and unity in the realization of this task. Riezler could only imagine the power of Urmusik, a force possibly seized through the dances of “primitive” people. Again he tried to define universals, commenting on the astonishing impact of music, his examples including even Bismarck’s and Lenin’s strong reactions to Beethoven’s “Appassionata.”72 He drew from world myth: if stories of image-​magic generally revolve around destruction and death (the hunted animal, the human enemy), musical magic (Orpheus, Kui, David) creates, saves, and enhances life. Drawing now on ethnomusicological study, including African and Indonesian, as well as his studies of early music with Rudolf von Ficker, Riezler pondered the roots of “art music.” He invoked the thoughts of Nietzsche, Wagner, and Goethe as he considered the strength of absolute music in relation to dance, gestures, words, and dramatic situations, and argued for the capacity of music to express poetic content. Following upon his wide-​ranging rumination on the roots and power of art and music, Riezler tried once again to draw meaningful analogies between the two, setting the task up as a challenge: “It appears to be in the nature of the thing that a connection between music as a time-​based art and the arts of the eye, which yield unchanging images, is impossible.”73 Art historians and musicologists do not figure in his arguments; here his sources are the insights of artists, musicians, and poets. Comments by Alberti, Poussin, and Ingres come into play: Ingres, for example, himself an excellent violinist, would tell his students in the Academy in Rome that they would paint better pictures if he succeeded in making good musicians out of them. Thoughts by Philipp Otto Runge, Goethe, and Heinrich von Kleist are introduced, and again Lyonel Feininger is singled out, as painter and composer, owing to the inner affinity between his pictures and his fugues for organ. Riezler then tried harder to bring the art forms together, on philosophical grounds. All artistic creation, he claimed, derives from the same drive toward form (Gestaltungstrieb), quite as powerful as the forces so much discussed in the present, like the “survival of the species” or the “will to power.”74 The human act of “giving form” (Gestaltung) is in harmony with natural processes, as Goethe affirmed. Natural forms grow in the free play of forces according to mysterious laws of entelechy; this is true, too, of the works of the human hand—​but the laws of entelechy are fulfilled, the potentials are realized, in the

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  249 light of the conscious spirit. A musical creation proceeds in time, remaining in the sphere of becoming (Werden); an image lifts a visible form from the flow of becoming and transforms it into an unchanging being (Sein). And yet, in both of these living arts there is something of the other, “being” in music, “becoming in art.” The viewer of a painting can experience the dynamic relations between parts as something latently temporal, and the listener, who knows a piece in a fundamental way, can lift a unified “Gestalt” from the flow of becoming. In the rapid histories of art and of music that followed, the audience would likely have been most interested in Riezler’s characterizations of trends in the present. In the visual arts he saw chaos, a labyrinth: he held that a complicated “thought operation” (Denkoperation) was needed to make one’s way through.75 He could not imagine a single exhibition containing the work of the present, as would have been possible in the heyday of Expressionism. Riezler held out little hope for Surrealism, a private art belonging to the domain of the literary. But abstraction was another thing: attracting young artists, it announced something new—​and here one might even see a convergence of “art of the eye” and the world of music. For, now, the composition is determined by the spiritual value of lines, colors, rhythms. Not yet could its reception be predicted; but this art fulfilled the precondition of belonging to the suprapersonal world. In trying to illuminate the current situation, Riezler settled on Picasso and Stravinsky, two figures who had passed through an astonishing number of phases: Picasso embracing most of the artistic tendencies of his time, in no clear temporal sequence; Stravinsky admitting a variety of musical influences, if in more distinct phases. Riezler drew the inference that “style” can no longer be viewed as an expression of the time, but rather as an artistic problem; or better, the problem itself is an expression of the time. Music gave him hope. He believed it to be the strongest of the current arts, the talents greater than in painting. The work of Kurt Weill and Hindemith, new and sincere, was being taken up with spontaneous excitement by younger people, and Riezler wondered if Carl Orff’s work might lead to a new art form. He was especially impressed by current developments in the Soviet Union. If the visual arts had been brought low through the state’s demand for general comprehensibility, in music the situation is quite different: witness the work of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Riezler would end with a turn to the future, to tasks to be faced by members of his audience. In architecture, the strides made in housing and urban design in the early twentieth century, the use of new building materials and construction techniques, point the way. Unity in architectural design, he conceded, had not been achieved—​indeed strife breaks out whenever the question of rebuilding destroyed cities is broached—​but architecture will have an important role to play. In the applied arts the design of mass products is vital and should be taught in the schools, though the role of handwork, too, must be recognized. Painting is in a difficult position, traditions broken, the artist now beginning with an idea rather than proceeding from nature. Art academies, like music academies, must open up, extend their purview. No longer may the superficial

250  Elizabeth Sears dismissal of whole periods be condoned. Enrichment is discovered in many places: in music the knowledge of pretonal music makes it easier to understand the posttonal music of the present. Standing up for traditional values, Riezler ended by stressing the importance of training in the discernment of “quality.”76 Not everything of any period is necessarily good, or bad; popular rejection of an artist movement is not an automatic sign of the worth of any individual work. The artist imbued with a sense of quality develops the capacity to realize an idea expressing deep spiritual content and to pursue an ideal to be achieved in the unity of the artwork—​a goal perhaps unreachable in chaotic times like the present. The life of an artist, he acknowledged, will be hard. Riezler’s postwar piece, in sum, presents a contrast to the paper of 1930, owing to audience, owing to times. Not working between disciplines so much as pursuing affinities between expressive forms in different domains, he allowed himself the freedom to range over time and space. But if it is a more free-​ wheeling piece, this essay was no less serious in intent. He stressed that it is “no idle intellectual game” (keine müßige gedankliche Spielerei), but a sign of a deep penetration into the nature of art, to speak of the inner affinity of the rules governing the formation of a sonata and a picture.77 Over troubled years, Riezler maintained his sense of mission. For him, art and music, as expressive forces, worked against dehumanization. “There will be art,” he wrote, “so long as mankind has a soul; or, viewed in a different way, the existence of art guarantees the integrity of the spiritual sphere.”78 7.5  An Afterthought on Interdisciplinarity It is impossible, of course, to gauge how Riezler’s deeply felt position statements were received in 1946, or in 1930. But something can be known of the purely academic response to the earlier paper, for comments on the talks were summarized and printed in the proceedings of the congress. Riezler had offered a bold exercise in interdisciplinarity, an educated effort to work between disciplines and domains, yielding newly nuanced interpretations of a range of cultural phenomena, past and present. The paper was delivered in a context aiming to foster cross-​disciplinary exchange, to engender reciprocal illumination and mutual fertilization among relevant fields. How would scholars react? Three participants—​an art historian, a musicologist, and a philosopher—​ offered responses.79 Alexander Dorner reiterated a point he made in his own paper that the dissolution of time and space Riezler placed in 1900 had in fact occurred in the early Romantic era. Wilhelm Heinitz, on the basis of gains in comparative musicology (specifically the study of the music of “primitive” and “exotic” peoples) suggested that Riezler’s categories could not be accepted as universal: “melodic” tonality should be added to “harmonic”; “thematic development” was possible outside tonal harmonies; “tension–​ relaxation” might form a broader basis for linking music and other arts. Finally, Hermann Friedmann advanced an idea drawn from the paper he had delivered at the

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  251 congress to the effect that it would be possible to approach musical space through the concepts of the haptic and the optic. None of these scholars, that is to say, ventured outside their discipline, or even outside their own area of research; none tried to comprehend that which made Riezler’s paper distinct; none came to terms with its method or message. The musicologist Heinitz, in fact, flatly stated that he was unable to judge the comparisons Riezler had made between painterly and musical forms for he understood little about painting… . Did the skeptics, back in 1912, have a point? Or was Dessoir’s sense of the urgent necessity of such interdisciplinary congresses revealed to be all the more justified? Notes 1 Bericht (1930 1931). The secretary of the congress, Hermann Noack, Privatdozent in philosophy at the University of Hamburg, documented the meeting in full, listing all registered participants and events, and publishing all papers and responses; the template for the publication had been provided by the organizers of the first aesthetics congress Bericht (1913 1914). 2 On the Zeitschrift, see Früchtl and Moog-​Grünewald (2007). In the year of its founding, 1906, Dessoir published a volume on the principles of aesthetics and art theory that set out the program he would promote. Part I treated aesthetic history and principles, the aesthetic object, aesthetic effect, and aesthetic categories; Part II treated art theory and artistic creation; the origins and classification of art, music, and performance; verbal, spatial, and pictorial arts; and the function of art (intellectual, social, moral). 3 For the history and the debates: Bericht (1913 1914, 1–​3). The group, initially calling itself the “Vereinigung für ästhetische Forschung,” first met on November 10, 1908. The vote was close: 55 for, 31 against, with 16 abstentions. 4 Bericht (1913 1914, 2). The prewar congress was a success, in terms of statistics alone, with 51 papers (all in German), 526 registered participants, and significant international representation. 5 Bericht (1927 1927). 6 Bericht (1930 1931, 9–​11). It was determined in 1930 that a fifth aesthetics congress would take place in Vienna in 1933 under the lead of Dagobert Frey, and would focus on “style” and “development” (Stil and Entwicklung) (ibid., 17). It ultimately did not take place in that fateful year; the congress held in Paris in 1937 was different in cast, consciously international. See Collenberg-​Plotnikov (2016)—​a special issue of the ZÄK devoted to the congresses. 7 Bericht (1930 1931, 10). 8 Riezler (1931). 9 Hegel would also say: “In music, it is not one spatial dimension that is obliterated, as in painting, but all space.” Paolucci (1979/​2001, 105, 126). 10 Williams (2009). 11 See Riezler (1931, 198), citing Alfred Einstein’s remark, which Hans Joachim Moser had quoted at the opening of a talk on “Style Affinity between Music and the other Arts,” delivered at the second aesthetics congress in Berlin in 1924; Moser’s talk generated a tense debate among musicologists about the modes, purposes, pitfalls,

252  Elizabeth Sears and benefits of seeking such affinities. Moser (1925, 425); Bericht (1924 1925, 439–​45). 12 On Riezler, see Vogel (1967); Chrambach (2003); Wendland (1999, 550–​53); and especially Tilitzki (2017). 13 Riezler (1902) (Lebenslauf): “Nächst Adolf Furtwängler bildete mich am stärksten die Philosophie von Hans Cornelius.” In 1910 Cornelius left Munich to join the philosophical faculty in Frankfurt, where, famously, he counted Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno among his students. 14 Furtwängler (1893). See Riezler (1907). Decades later, when writing on the issue of “quality,” Riezler showed his Furtwänglerian training when he spoke of the tremendous difference between the Greek original and the Roman copy and how long it took to be recognized. Riezler (1947, 38). 15 Riezler (1955)—​a memorial tribute to Wilhelm Furtwängler. Riezler dated their first meeting to 1897/​1898. On the stormy relationship, Tilitzki (2017): Riezler would accuse the lionized conductor of turning his back on composition; Furtwängler would be infuriated by Riezler’s defense of atonal music. On the Furtwängler–​ Schenker connection, Riezler (1955, 84–​85). 16 Riezler (1955, 56–​62). See Sattler (1962, 674–​76), for a wartime letter, November 4, 1917, written to Hildebrand by Riezler, serving on the Italian front, expressing appreciation. 17 On Hildebrand, Riezler (1906, 1911, 1916, 1921). 18 Riezler (1908). 19 On the early years of the Werkbund, Schwartz (1996); more generally, Campbell (1978), Petsch (1980); also Riezler (1916). 20 Riezler (1911). 21 Riezler benefited from Furtwängler–​Dohrn family connections, the Dohrns being a patrician family in Stettin (Vogel 1967, 85–​86). 22 On Riezler’s promotion of contemporary art in Stettin (Vogel 1967; Pieske 1997, 22–​23; Tilitzki 2017, 178–​82; Kacprzak 2019). 23 As Riezler himself put it: “1933 wegen ‘Kulturbolschewismus’ entlassen” (Riezler 1947, 42). 24 Kacprzak (2019). 25 The entire run of Die Form, digitized, searchable, is available at: www.ub.uni-​hei​delb​ erg.de/​hel​ios/​fachi​nfo/​www/​kunst/​digi​lit/​artj​ourn​als/​form.html 26 Riezler (1922, 2): “Das Bild der Welt, das der Künstler entwirft, enthält nicht weniger Züge höchster Wahrheit und Weisheit wie die Systeme der Wissenschaften und Philosophien.” Riezler’s opening essay as editor in 1927 was an epistolary exchange with Mies van der Rohe, in which the architect attacked and the editor defended the journal’s title. 27 Riezler (1932). 28 Campbell (1978, 257–​58). 29 A rural municipality, Ebenhausen would not remain unscathed by the war: it was home to an I. G. Farben war plant blown up by the US Army in November 1945. 30 Riezler (1947, 42). 31 Riezler (1936). On Schenker, Riezler (1938, 68): It is Heinrich Schenker that we have to thank for the most thorough insight into the essence of Beethoven’s music. His exhaustive analysis of the Ninth Symphony, the later sonatas, and other works is, in the light it throws on their organic growth,

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  253 so far unexcelled. It must be admitted that in his efforts to discover this organic growth, Schenker is not in his later books—​especially that on the Eroica—​guiltless of a certain measure of hair-​splitting and over-​refinement. This danger threatens all who try to unveil the last mysteries of a work of art. For a contemporary response, see Ronga (1938): the Italian reviewer was surprised by the quality of the work of this “unknown” scholar and took exception only to his praise of Schenker and to his Schenkerian analysis of the first movement of the Eroica. In the 1944 edition of Beethoven, 272–​98, the treatment of the Eroica had already given way to a section entitled “Einige musiktheoretische Bemerkungen” in which Riezler attempted to make the language of specialists accessible to the lay person; here he opposed the work of Riemann and Schenker, not fully supporting the more extreme conclusions of either. 32 As recorded in the institutional diary (Tagebuch) of the KBW, December 11, 1917 (Warburg 2001, 162). 33 For recent literature on Warburg, see Björn Biester’s website: https://​aby-​warb​urg. blogs​pot.com/​ 34 Five of those present at the planning session in Hamburg in December 1927 had attended the first aesthetics congress in Berlin: Cassirer, Warburg, Panofsky, Georg Anschütz, and Wilhelm Niemeyer Bericht (1913 1914, 8–​19); Cassirer, Noack, and Anschütz had attended the third in Halle Bericht (1927 1927, 109–​14). 35 In a later entry in the Tagebuch, March 21, 1928, Warburg, having met with Dessoir and Wolffheim in Berlin, called it a disgrace that the library was being broken up (zertrümmert) Warburg (2001, 230). On the book sale, see Versteigerung (1928–​29). Participants at the first aesthetics congress had been invited to visit Wolffheim’s library (Bericht 1913 1914, 7). 36 ZÄK (1929, 357): “Die Gestaltung von Raum und Zeit in der Kunst”; for the final program: Bericht (1930 1931, 3–​4). 37 Wind (1931, 1983). The talk, given at the KBW, was intended for congress participants from outside Hamburg, who were asked to preregister. 38 Stechow (1931, 118 n. 1, 129–​30). 39 On the “spatial representation of musical form” with discussion of the tension between understanding form as process and form as structure, and the impact of temporal and spatial analogy, see Bond (2010). I thank Jeffrey Swinkin for this reference. 40 Riezler (1931, 181 n. 1), referring to Panofsky (1927), Frey (1929), Riezler (1926). For a treatment of the methodological tradition of space/​time study, offered as a prehistory to the “spatial turn” in art history after 1989, see Burbulla (2015), esp. ­chapter 4.1, “Panofskys Seele,” which mentions the planning of the Fourth Aesthetic Congress. 41 Frey (Vienna) opened the final session of the congress with a paper on “The Artwork as a Problem of Will” (1931). Panofsky did not deliver a paper but commented on Hermann Fränkel’s talk on “The Conception of Time in Archaic Greek Literature” (1931; Bericht (1930 1931, 117)). Panofsky compared the shift Fränkel had tracked in literature to shifts in the history of ethics, introducing thoughts from his own new book, Hercules am Scheidewege (Panofsky 1930). 42 Riezler (1931, 180). Cf. Panofsky (1927, 260–​61; 1991, 28–​31). Mathematically constructed space, that is to say, does not conform to the structure of psychophysiological space, to the spheroidal field of vision created by two moving eyes.

254  Elizabeth Sears 4 3 Riezler (1931, 181–​83). 44 Riezler (1931, 182 n. 1). Cassirer (1927) was published by the KBW, dedicated to Aby Warburg. In the lengthy note, Riezler considered the drawbacks of spatial construction from a single viewpoint, as it can be unsettling to stand in “incorrect” positions—​and he wondered if this might mean (against his thesis) that the construction only reckons with an ideal viewer; this might suggest that, even more than in the Middle Ages, Renaissance space existed only “for itself.” But the constructed system, he countered, strives precisely to encourage the empirical viewer to find the right standpoint. The problem, in part solved in the Baroque with its free atmospheric formation of space (also working “for the eye”), is that it goes against the nature of space to hold the viewer to a single standpoint. 45 Riezler (1931, 184), showing himself aware of Wölfflin’s oppositions (five in all), used to distinguish Renaissance from Baroque art (Wölfflin 1915, 2015). Musicologists, too, made use of the pairings (e.g., Moser 1925, 435–​36). 46 Riezler (1931, 195 n. 1), making reference to Berchen-​Mayer (1923). 47 Riezler (1931, 186). Alexander Dorner, director of the Landesmuseum in Hannover and advocate for the avant-​garde, spoke at the congress on new concept of space in Romantic painting (Dorner 1931). 48 Riezler (1931, 186). What could be read in Marées pictures, he said, could be known through Hildebrand’s Problem der Form—​“das im Wesentlichen ein Niederschlag der Maréesschen Lehre ist.” 49 Riezler (1929); discussed in Tilitzki (2017, 164–​66). Riezler had made 1900 the pivot in “The Atonal World,” but here took a different tack, setting the static and harmonious world imagined by Leibniz, Bacon, Descartes, and Kant against the model offered by Max Planck and Albert Einstein, which shattered the “tonal worldview.” In Hindemith and Stravinsky he saw the dawning of a new classicism. 50 Riezler’s reference is to Kurth (1922). 51 See Tilitzki (2017, 168–​72) for letters from Riezler to Wilhelm Furtwängler on Tristan und Isolde (“the most perfect of Wagner’s works”) and on Bayreuth (which Riezler saw as less about Wagner’s music than “das ganze Drum und Dran der Wagnerschen Welt”); he gave warnings about the connection between Bayreuth and Nazi cultural politics. Riezler knew of what he spoke; his parents had moved in Wagner’s circle. 52 Riezler (1931, 189 n. 1): “Das ‘A-​ Dur’ (Heses-​ Dur) ist der Akkord der sog. ‘neapolitanischen Sexte’ in As-​ Dur. Dadurch wird der 1. Akkord des Motivs, eigentlich 6. Stufe in C-​Moll, als As-​Dur ‘tonikalisiert’ (nach der Teminologie H. Schenkers).” This may suggest that Riezler, when studying with Max Reger, read Schenker (1906). 53 Riezler (1931, 189): “Aber jedenfalls hat Reger selbst die Lehre vertreten, daß es ein Komponieren außerhalb der Fortschreitungen im Sinne der tonalen Kadenz nicht gebe.” 54 Frey (1929), Mersmann (1928). 55 Riezler (1931, 190–​92). 56 Riezler (1931, 191): “Der tonale Tonraum dagegen ist eine der erhabensten Ideen die jemals gedacht und empfunden wurden—​die Verwirklichung der vollkommensten, in sich abgeschlossensten Harmonie, die jemals dem Menschen bewußt geworden ist.” 57 See Riezler (1938, 92–​93), for a fuller account of Gestalt (“organic structure”) and Umgestaltung.

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  255 58 Riezler (1931, 192–​93) digressed to consider why the decisive step in music was taken a century later than in the pictorial arts (Palestrina was a contemporary of Tintoretto). Was it because it was the younger art? Riezler took exception to Frey (1929, 227–​54) (­chapter 6: “Kontrapunkt und Harmonie”). The art historian had suggested that because the significance of the triad was recognized before 1500 and the foundation laid for polyphony musical “space” had been created (the “vertical” added to the horizontal). In Riezler’s opinion, musical space was created only when the tonal relation between successive chords had been determined. 59 Riezler (1931, 193). 60 Tiessen (1928); Riezler (1931, 195). 61 Riezler (1931, 198). 62 Riezler (1931, 200). 63 Riezler (1931, 200); Wichert (1928, 343). This was an important source for Riezler: here the development of Weltanschauung and Raumcharakter are coordinated. 64 Panofsky (1927, 330 n. 73); Riezler (1931, 201). Here in a footnote Riezler took exception to Dorner’s positioning of Constructivism at the center of modern art. 65 Riezler (1931, 202). See Neumann (2018, 119–​21) for a translation of Riezler’s reflections relevant to the Barcelona Pavilion. 66 For Riezler’s political stance and his sense that the force of collectivism was working against the individual in the Soviet and American systems alike, see Tilitzki (2017, 173–​78). 67 Riezler (1931, 204). His points of reference are Bechtel (1930, 15, 22) and Hartmann (1921). 68 Riezler (1931, 205 n. 1). Dessoir had explicitly praised the Neue Sachlichkeit in his opening remarks Bericht (1930 1931, 11): “was die theoretische Erforschung der einzelnen Künste betrifft, so macht die oft genannte ‘neue Sachlichkeit’ Fortschritte in der Behandlung der Raumkünste und der Musik.” 69 Riezler (1947, 5). 70 Riezler (1922, 2). 71 Ibid. 72 (Ibid., 11). 73 (Ibid., 17): “Es scheint in der Natur der Sache zu liegen, daß eine Verbindung der Musik als der in der Zeit verlaufenden Kunst mit den Künsten des Auges, die unveränderliche Bilder schaffen, unmöglich ist.” 74 (Ibid., 18–​19). 75 (Ibid., 24–​25). 76 (Ibid., 37–​41). 77 (Ibid., 21). 78 (Ibid., 20): “Kunst wird es solange geben wie der Mensch noch eine Seele hat. Oder, von der anderen Seite gesehen: die Existenz der Kunst verbürgt die Unversehrtheit des seelischen Bereichs.” 79 Riezler (1931, 205–​06) (comments). See also Dorner (1931); Friedmann (1931). Heinitz made reference to Moser (1925).

256  Elizabeth Sears Bibliography Bechtel, Heinrich. 1930. Wirtschaftsstil des deutschen Spätmittelalters: der Ausdruck der Lebensform in Wirtschaft, Gesellschaftsaufbau und Kunst von 1350 bis um 1500. Munich and Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. Berchen, Erich von der and August L. Mayer. 1923. Jacopo Tintoretto. Munich: R. Piper. Bericht 1913. 1914. Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 7.-​9. 1913. Edited by Ortsausschuss. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke. Bericht 1924. 1925. Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschft, Berlin 16.-​18. Oktober. Edited by Arbeitsausschuss. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke [=​ZÄK, 19]; https://​ digi.ub.uni-​hei​delb​erg.de/​dig​lit/​zaak​19_​1​925 Bericht 1927. 1927. Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschft, Halle 7.-​9. Juni 1927. Edited by Wolfgang Liepe. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke [=​ZÄK 21 (2)]; https://​digi.ub.uni-​hei​delb​erg.de/​dig​lit/​zaak1​927 Bericht 1930. 1931. Vierter Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, Hamburg, 7.-​9. Oktober 1930: Bericht. Edited by Hermann Noack. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke [=​ZÄK, Beilageheft, 25]; https://​digi.ub.uni-​hei​delb​erg.de/​dig​lit/​zaak19​31_​b​eil Bonds, Mark Evan. 2010. “The Spatial Representation of Musical Form.” Journal of Musicology 27, no. 3: 265–​303. Burbulla, Julia. 2015. Kunstgeschichte nach dem Spatial Turn: Eine Wiederentdeckung mit Kant, Panofsky und Dorner. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Campbell, Joan. 1978. The German Werkbund: The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts. Princeton: Princeton University Press [eBook: Princeton Legacy Library, 2015]. Cassirer, Ernst. 1927. Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance. Leipzig: Teubner. —​—​—​. 1963. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. Translated by Mario Domandi. New York: Barnes & Noble. Chrambach, Eva. 2003. “Walter Riezler.” In Neue Deutsche Biographie. 21: 617–​18. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot; online. Collenberg-​ Plotnikov, Bernadette, Carole Maigné, and Céline Trautmann-​Waller. 2016. “Berlin 1913–​Paris 1937: Ästhetik und Kunstwissenschaft im Zeitalter der Kongresse: Vorwort.” Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 61, no. 2: 174–​88. Dessoir, Max. 1906. Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft in den Grundzügen. Stuttgart: F. Enke. Dorner, Alexander. 1931. “Zur Raumvorstellung der Romantik.” In Bericht 1930, 130–​42. Fränkel, Hermann. 1931. “Die Zeitauffassung in der archaischen griechischen Literatur.” In Bericht 1930, 97–​117. Frey, Dagobert. 1929. Gotik und Renaissance als Grundlagen der modernen Weltanschauung. Augsburg: B. Filser. —​—​—​. 1931. “Das Kunstwerk als Willensproblem.” In Bericht 1930, 231–​44. Friedmann, Hermann. 1931. “Raum und Zeit vom Standpunkt des morphologischen Idealismus.” In Bericht 1930, 54–​66. Früchtl, Josef and Maria Moog-​Grünewald, eds. 2007. Ästhetik in metaphysikkritischen Zeiten: 100 Jahre ‘Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft’. Sonderheft 8 der Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  257 Furtwängler, Adolf. 1893. Meisterwerke der griechischen Plastik: kunstgeschichtliche Untersuchungen. Leipzig: Geisecke & Devrient. Hartmann, Nicolai. 1921. Grundzüge einer Metaphysik der Erkenntnis. Berlin: W. de Gruyter. Hildebrand, Adolf. 1905. Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst. Strassburg: Heitz. Kacprzak, Dariusz. 2019. “From the Studies on ‘Degenerate Art’ Twenty Years after the Washington Conference: Szczecin’s Case (Museum der Stadt Stettin).” Muzealnictwo 60: 126–​42. Kurth, Ernst. 1922. Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts: Bachs melodische Polyphonie. Berlin: M. Hesse. Lerdahl, Fred. 2001. Tonal Pitch Space. New York: Oxford University Press. Mersmann, Hans. 1928. Die Tonsprache der neuen Musik. Mainz: Schott. Michon, Pascal. 2018. “Rhythm as Aesthetic Commonplace (Part 1).” Rhuthmos, 12 December [online]. http://​rhuth​mos.eu/​spip.php?arti​cle2​338 Moser, Hans Joachim. 1925. “Die Stilverwandtschaft zwischen der Musik und den andern Künsten.” In Bericht 1924, 425–​45. Neumann, Dietrich. 2020. Accidental Masterpiece: The Barcelona Pavilion by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Basel: Birkhäuser. Panofsky, Erwin. 1927. “Die Perspektive als ‘symbolische Form.’ ” In Vorträge der Bibliothek Warburg 1924–​1925, 4: 258–​330. Leipzig: Teubner. —​—​—​. 1930. Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst. Leipzig: Teubner. —​—​—​. 1991. Perspective as Symbolic Form. Translated by Christopher S. Wood. New York: Zone Books. Paolucci, Henry, translator. 1979/​2001. Hegel on the Arts: Selections form G. W. F. Hegel’s Aesthetics or the Philosophy of Fine Art. New York: Ungar; Smyrna: Griffon House. Petsch, Joachim. 1980. “The Deutscher Werkbund from 1907 to 1933 and the Movements for the ‘Reform of Life and Culture.’ ” In The Werkbund: History and Ideology, 1907–​1933. Edited by Lucius Burckhardt. Translated by Pearl Sanders, 85–​ 93. Woodbury: Barron’s. Pieske, Christa. 1997. Die Druckgraphik des Stadtmuseums Stettin bis 1945. 2 volumes. Neumünster: Wachholtz. Riezler, Walter. 1902. Der Parthenon und die Vasenmalerei. Studien zur attischen Vasengeschichte. Munich: F. Straub. —​ —​ —​ . 1906. “Adolf Hildebrand und der Klassizismus.” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 1: 11–​15. —​—​—​. 1907. “Nekrolog auf Adolf Furtwängler.” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 2, no. 2: VII–​XI. —​—​—​. 1908. “Die Einheit der Form auf der Ausstellung München 1908.” In Die Ausstellung München 1908: Eine Denkschrift. Munich: Bruckmann. —​—​—​. 1911. “München und die moderne Bewegung,” Die Kunst: Monatsheft für freie und angewandte Kunst 24: 104–​17. —​—​—​. 1915. “Adolf von Hildebrand und seine Schätzung in der Zeit.” Die Kunst 31: 41–​53. —​—​—​. 1916. Die Kulturarbeit des Deutschen Werkbundes. Weltkultur und Weltpolitik, Deutsche Folge, 7. Munich: Bruckmann. —​—​—​. 1921. “Adolf von Hildebrand.” Jugend 28; rpt. in Sattler 1962, 709–​22.

258  Elizabeth Sears —​—​—​. 1922. “Zum Geleit.” Die Form: Monatsschrift für gestaltende Arbeit 1, no. 1: 1–​4. —​—​—​. 1925–​26. “Ford.” Die Form: Zeitschrift für gestaltende Arbeit 1, no. 9: 203–​04. —​—​—​. 1926. “Die Baukunst am Scheidewege: Ein Versuch.” In Kairos: Zur Geisteslage und Geisteswendung. Edited by Paul Tillich. Darmstadt: O. Reichl. —​—​—​. 1927. “Zum neuen Jahrgang.” Die Form 2, no. 1: 1–​2. —​—​—​. 1929. “Die atonale Welt.” Die Form 4, no. 2: 25–​27. —​—​—​. 1931. “Das neue Raumgefühl in bildender Kunst und Musik.” In Bericht 1930, 179–​205. —​—​—​. 1932. “Der Kampf um die deutsche Kultur.” Die Form 7, no. 10: 325–​28. —​—​—​. 1936. Beethoven. Berlin and Zurich: Atlantic Verlag. —​—​—​. 1938. Beethoven. Translated by G. D. H. Pidcock. London: Forrester; New York: E. P. Dutton. —​—​—​. 1947. Einheit der Künste (Universitas artium), Geistiges München, 9. Munich: Drei Fichten. —​—​—​. 1955. “Wilhelm Furtwängler’s geistige Welt: Gedanken zum Problem des Komponisten.” In Wilhelm Furtwängler im Urteil seiner Zeit. Edited by Martin Hürlimann, 53–​93. Zurich: Atlantis Verlag. Ronga, Luigi. 1938. Review of Riezler, Beethoven. Studi Germanici 3, no. 2: 206–​08. Sattler, Bernhard, ed. 1962. Adolf von Hildebrand und seine Welt: Briefe und Erinnerungen. Munich: Callwey. Schenker, Heinrich. 1906. Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien, volume 1. Harmonielehre. Stuttgart and Berlin: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger. —​—​—​. 1930. “Beethovens Dritte Sinfonie zum erstenmal in ihrem wahren Inhalt dargestellt.” In Das Meisterwerk in der Musik 3: 25–​101. Munich: Drei Masken Verlag. —​—​—​. Harmony. 1954. Edited by Oswald Jonas. Translated by Elisabeth Mann Borgese. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schwartz, Frederick J. 1996. The Werkbund: Design Theory and Mass Culture before the First World War. New Haven: Yale University Press. Stechow, Wolfgang. 1931. “Raum und Zeit in der graphischen und musikalischen Illustration.” In Bericht 1930, 118–​27. Tiessen, Heinz. 1928. Zur Geschichte der jüngsten Musik (1913–​1928): Probleme und Entwicklungen. Mainz: Melosverlag. Tilitzki, Christian. 2017. “Anwalt der künstlerischen Moderne: der Stettiner Museumsdirektor Walter Riezler. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Wilhelm Furtwängler über Wagner, Bayreuth und atonale Musik im Kontext der Kulturpolitik der Weimarer Republik.” Baltische Studien 103: 159–​82. Versteigerung der Musikbibliothek des Herrn Dr. Werner Wolffheim. 1928–​29. 2 volumes. Berlin: Breslauer & Liepmannssohn. Vogel, Hans. 1967. “Walter Riezler und die geistige Kultur Stettins vor 1933.” Baltische Studien 53: 83–​92. Warburg, Aby. 2001. Tagebuch der Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg. Edited by Karen Michels and Charlotte Schoell-​Glass. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Wendland, Ulrike. 1999. Biographisches Handbuch deutschsprachiger Kunsthistoriker, 2 volumes. Munich: K. G. Saur, 550–​53. Wichert, Fritz. 1928. “Max Beckmann und einiges zur Lage der Kunst.” Die Form 3, no. 12: 337–​47.

Walter Riezler on the Unity of the Arts  259 Williams, Robert. 2009. “Das Eine im Wandel: Music and Kunstwissenschaft.” Journal of Art Historiography 1. https://​arthis​tori​ogra​phy.files.wordpr​ess.com/​2011/​02/​medi​ a_​13​9134​_​en.pdf Wind, Edgar. 1931. “Warburgs Begriff der Kulturwissenschaft und seine Bedeutung für die moderne Ästhetik.” In Bericht 1930, 163–​79. —​ —​ —​ . 1983. “Warburg’s Concept of Kulturwissenschaft and its Meaning for Aesthetics.” In The Eloquence of Symbols. Edited by Jaynie Anderson, 21–​ 35. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Wölfflin, Heinrich. 1915. Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe: das Problem der Stilentwicklung in der neueren Kunst. Munich: F. Bruckmann. —​—​—​. 2015. Principles of Art History: The Problem of the Development of Style in Early Modern Art. Translated by Jonathan Blower. Edited by Evonne Levy and Tristan Weddigen. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute. ZÄK. Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft.

8 Completing the Triad Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy1 Bryan Parkhurst

8.1 Introduction Das Werk Heinrich Schenkers [ist] nach seiner einzigartigen Bedeutung innerhalb der Musikwissenschaft nur der Kants in der Philosophie vergleichbar … (Heinrich Schenker’s work, in respect of its unique significance in musicology, is comparable only to the work of Kant in philosophy ...) (Oswalt Jonas, Das Wesen des Musikalischen Kunstwerks, cover page)2

In 1988, the journal Theoria published Kevin Korsyn’s “Schenker and Kantian Epistemology” (SKT), for which he received the 1991 Society for Music Theory Young Scholar Award. In it, Korsyn defended an interpretive thesis that sought to replace the received image of Schenker als Metaphysiker with a new vision of Schenker als Erkenntnistheoretiker.3 Specifically, Korsyn introduced us to a “first-​Critique Schenker” who assumes the mantle of Kant by acting as cartographer of the limits of possible musical knowledge.4 This paradigm-​ shifting reading can be grouped together, thematically and to some extent methodologically, with Solie (1978, 1980), Pastille (1984, 1985, 1995), Cherlin (1988), Hubbs (1991), and Korsyn (1993). Together, these reconsiderations of Schenker set the secondary literature on a new course. Schenker scholarship began to pivot away from tendentious and often vulgarized Schenkerian apologetics (e.g., Citkowitz 1933; Katz 1935; Forte 1959), and also away from the negative symbiont of this “Schenkerolatry,” viz., equally tendentious and vulgarized anti-​Schenkerian polemics (e.g., Sessions 1935 and 1938; Mann 1949; Narmour 1977). The Neue Schenker-​Lektüre (as I think of it) of the 1980s–​1990s nudged Schenker studies in the direction of a more philosophically astute, more philologically incisive, and more exegetically circumspect brand of hermeneutics.5 In particular, SKT revealed that many partisans scarcely understood the Schenker they had been either championing or vilifying. In out-​of-​the way provinces and languishing hinterlands of Schenker’s oeuvre—​areas overgrown with “polemical quasi-​philosophical material, [… that] can be disregarded,” according to Allen Forte (Schenker 2001c, xviii)—​ Korsyn unearthed a distinctively and demonstrably Kantian philosophical DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-13

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  261 sensibility. This sensibility shows itself, Korsyn saw, in Schenker’s conception of such categories as synthesis (as the unification of the musical “sensory manifold”), causation (as an irreversibly ordered relation of necessary consecution between musical events), and time (as the a priori intuitive form of all, and thus all musical, experience). Korsyn’s article is to be celebrated today not just for its sheer virtuosity as a piece of intellectual archaeology, but also because of what it made mandatory for future Schenker research. SKT compelled Schenker scholars to acknowledge that what was called for was a great deal more philosophical, historical, and ideological unpacking of Schenker’s thought, not further “boo-​hurrah” back-​and-​forth between supporters and detractors. Linear reduction, prolongation, analysis as reverse-​engineered composing-​out, the concept of a masterwork, etc., all awaited the attention of what the Germans call kritische Ideengeschichte. And so “dogmatic slumber,” to use Kant’s colorful term for what Hume awoke him from, was no longer a viable option after SKT, if it ever really was one. Three decades later, under Korsyn’s tutelage, I wrote “Making a Virtue of Necessity: Schenker and Kantian Teleology,” which, mirabile dictu, won what had by then been rechristened as the Society for Music Theory Emerging Scholar Award. (Other things being equal, I’d rather be young than emerging, but that is neither here nor there.) Picking up where I understood Korsyn to have left off, I advanced a contrasting but complementary image of a “third-​Critique Schenker.” This later-​Kantian Schenker, as I portrayed him, made teleological judgment his top priority. According to Kant’s conception of it, teleological judgments comprehend objects—​paradigmatically natural, living objects—​as essentially functional or purposive entities. This type of judgment makes irreducible reference to a thing’s end (Zweck), that is, its intrinsic, internal, immanent, guiding concept or organizing form. Schenker’s late, “critical” works,6 I claimed, painstakingly (and sometimes painfully—​Schenker is not always a palatable stylist) develop his intuition that such judgments of end-​directedness are the uniquely suitable means and method of accounting for music’s “life activity,” its (seeming if not actual) self-​realization, internal self-​necessitation, reflexive self-​regulation, autonomous self-​positing, and so forth. I argued that Schenker’s approach to musical “elucidation” (Erläuterung)—​the explanation-​ yielding investigatory process of which his voice-​leading graphs are the legible testimony—​is comparable, indeed is tightly and non-​accidentally homologous, to the end-​oriented (zweckmäßig) epistemic activity that Kant ranged under the heading of “judgments of purposiveness.” (Judgments of purposiveness are teleological judgements where the relevant telos is “internal,” as it is in a living creature, rather than imposed from the outside, as is the case for a tool such as a hammer.) In plainer terms: Schenkerian analysis tries to get an epistemic grip on music in exactly the way Kant thinks we must try to get an epistemic grip on stuff that is immanently self-​determining. And for Kant, that special kind of stuff comes in two varieties: nature and art. Accordingly, Kantian judgments of purposiveness also come in two varieties. There are teleological judgments of nature, which posit definite, statable ends or purposes, for example, the

262  Bryan Parkhurst growth, metabolism, and procreation of the individual organism, the perpetuation of the species, the homeostasis of an ecosystem, and so on. And there are aesthetic judgments of the beautiful, which posit indefinite, thus ineffable, ends. This indefiniteness and ineffability is what Kant is referring to when he says, obscurely, that the beautiful has Zweckmäßigkeit ohne Zeck, purposiveness (functional end-​orientation) without a purpose (without a definite end). In studying and juxtaposing Schenker and Kant, I became convinced that it is Kant’s theory of the former judgmental type, teleological judgments of living things, rather than his account of how the beautiful is properly experienced and assessed, that more deeply impregnates Schenker’s “content-​decipherative methodology” (Parkhurst 2017, 62). Curiously, in other words, Schenker treats art as Kant treats nature, not as Kant treats art. My Schenker was a Kantian biologist of music, not a Kantian aesthetician of music.7 So we have, as of this writing, two sketches of two different, or differently accentuated, Kantian Schenkers: an epistemological Schenker and a teleological Schenker.8 As anyone who has read a bit of Kant knows, the number two is rarely a stopping point for him. His is a resolutely threefold pattern of analysis and inquiry, writ large in the triadic “architectonic” structure of his three Critiques (of Pure Reason [Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781, second edition 1787], of Practical Reason [Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788], and of the Power of Judgment [Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790]). (Hegel, it will be recalled, received the trinitarian spirit of Kant—​the penchant for relentless “threeification”—​from Fichte’s hands, as Count Waldstein might have put it.) Assuming we are by now convinced of the presence of a Kantian underlayment resting beneath, and holding upright, Schenker’s musical epistemology and teleology, it is only fitting for us to wonder: is there also a “second-​Critique Schenker?” Can Kant’s moral philosophy serve as a key for unlocking certain perplexing or unaccountable aspects of Schenker’s credal system and musical worldview, as can Kant’s theory of knowledge, from the first Critique, and Kant’s theory of the explicability of “the material systematicity of nature” (Guyer 2009, 203), from the third Critique? Is Schenker a Kantian ethicist, as well as a Kantian epistemologist and biologist? 8.2  Schenker as “Ethicist” and “Kantian Ethicist” From one point of view, it is a trifle too easy to connect Schenker’s “theory of tonality” (Brown et al. 1997, passim) to ethics in general and to Kantian ethics in particular.9 Yes, Schenker’s “theory” of “tonality” is “ethical,” if what one means in saying so is that what Schenker says about tonal music evinces an ethos, espouses a set of standards for how we ought to be or act or live or feel.10 But the unmistakable fact that Schenker’s writings are by turns homiletic, panegyric, hagiographic, jeremiadic, etc.—​all in all, very judgy—​does not on its own show that they are “ethical” in a more philosophically substantive sense.11 Speaking from the pulpit is not the same as doing that which Aristotle baptized as “ethics” (ethika), or what eighteenth-​century thinkers preferred

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  263 to call “moral philosophy.” Cook (1989, 433), not incorrectly so much as unfoundedly, maintains that “Schenker’s theory of music was conceived ... as at the same time a theory of ethics” (Cook 1989, 433). He bases this claim on his observation that Schenker’s writings are often “directed against something or somebody” (ibid., 416) and often involve the “appl[ication of] his concept of the Urlinie as a universal criterion of value” (ibid., 433). But surely this sets too low a bar for what counts as a “theory of ethics.” “Theory of ethics,” so used, really just dresses up the truism that Schenker can’t help saying “sollen” and “müssen” apropos of all things musical. Schenker was a man of many oughts. But Schenker’s indefatigable bossiness, and, more generally, the undisguised normative or prescriptive or optative dimension of Schenker’s Schenkerism, is a far cry from a “theory of ethics.” In fact, taken by itself, Schenker’s relentless ought-​mongering has the effect of constantly reminding us that he is giving us something other than or less than a theory of ethics properly so called. Philosophical ethics doesn’t just tell us what to do; it tells us why to do it, and what doing it consists in, and what goes into knowing what to do and how to do it, and what such knowledge consists in. But the manic, scattershot quality of Schenker’s imperatives just accentuates the absence of and need for a philosophically worked-​out ethical theory that would back up, or provide the charter for, all that “oughtiness” (on which more later). No attentive reader can doubt that Schenker adopts an “essentially ethical approach to the compositional process” (Cook, 436), if what’s “essentially ethical” about the approach is just that Schenker’s discussions of musical compositions are not neutrally, disinterestedly, and antiseptically descriptive. But we might question whether someone who has told us this about Schenker has offered us an interpretation of Schenker’s writings, in the sense of a contestable exposition of them that discloses something nonobvious about their philosophical character and content. Nothing could be more self-​evident than that Schenker is taken up with (to borrow a rhyme from John Haldane) the practive and the active, not just the factive.12 And very nearly every sustained thought that Schenker ever committed to paper broadcasts the evaluatively judgmental sensibility, the Werturteilsvermögen, within which Schenker’s whole consciousness lives and moves and has its being. Schenker’s “ethicism” (understood in the thin, pre-​or sub-​philosophical sense), then, is hardly the stuff of exegetical conjecture, hardly the sort of attribution that stands in need of corroboration by judiciously selected textual evidence. Recognition of Schenker’s “ethicism,” the normative current coursing through all his works, is just the minimum price of admission to any commonsensical and reasonably literate discussion about what Schenker actually said and how he actually said it. One thing he said a lot about, and with fierce sincerity and much vigor of expression, is what duties (Pflichten) he thinks we have. Schenker’s oughtiness, that is to say, tends to take the form of an intense Pflichtbewusstsein or Pflichtauffassung, a heightened awareness of the call of duty. So if—​as I have been cautioning us against doing—​we let ourselves think of his deontic (“duty-​ full”) way of talking as a “theory of ethics,” we may then be tempted to say

264  Bryan Parkhurst that Schenker has a Kantian “theory of ethics.” We will be tempted to do this if, as is commonly done, we associate Kant first and foremost with a moral outlook that elevates duty (Pflicht) above all else. “Deontological” ethical theory (from the Greek “deon” =​“obligation”)13 encompasses a family of views according to which the rightness of action depends exclusively on the nature and structure of the agent’s intentions, specifically on her (paradigmatically self-​conscious) adherence, in the act of willing, to (paradigmatically inviolable, rationally transparent, and formal) rules of conduct. This contrasts with what is propounded by “consequentialist” ethical theories. These, instead of tying moral goodness to something “internal” to an action (such as its having been motivated by duty, superintended by a good will, etc.), tie it to something “external” to the action, such as its being the proximate cause of an objectively desirable effect, for instance the maximization of happiness or utility (as on the classical utilitarian model of consequentialism). Typically, Kant is identified as a deontological rigorist par excellence: he is thought of as the most zealous and uncompromising duty worshiper in the post-​Medieval European philosophical tradition.14 It’s a pity that Kant gets tarred with this brush, not because being a duty worshiper is such a bad thing to be, but because the label of “deontology” is anachronistic and misleadingly one-​sided when applied to Kant’s multifaceted ethics. Kant did not think of himself as championing something he thought of as a duty-​ based ethics in opposition to something he thought of as an outcome-​based ethics. And pigeonholing Kantian ethics as hard-​core “deontology” sidelines those aspects of his practical philosophy that go beyond the observance of duty and that show Kant’s “soft” side, his warm humanism and abiding concern for individual and communal well-​being. Still, this much is incontrovertible: Kant did seek to establish that and how autonomous rationality issues nonoptional moral commands to itself, in the form of self-​legislated practical imperatives. We human agents are, for Kant, at once the authors and the addressees of the moral law. Our own agency-​enabling faculty of reason articulates duties that we, insofar as we are rational agents, must acknowledge as binding upon ourselves. “The moral law,” Kant tells us, is an imperative that commands categorically because the law is unconditional. The relation of [the human] will to this law is dependence, under the name of obligation, which means a necessitation, although only by reason and its objective law, to an action that is called duty. The action is called duty because a pathologically affected (although not thereby determined, and hence always also free) power of choice carries with it a wish that arises from subjective causes and that hence can often be opposed to the pure objective determining basis and therefore requires, as moral necessitation, a resistance of practical reason that may be called an inner but intellectual constraint. (2002, 47–​48)

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  265 Undoubtedly, Kant gives duties a place of honor in his ethical system—​in fact he holds love of duty to be the pinnacle of moral self-​formation. You might think that this gives us the desired handgrip for pulling Schenker toward Kant: we need only observe that Schenker, like Kant, says “Pflicht” all the time. This mannerism of Schenker’s is interesting on its own account, since when he uses “Pflicht,” Schenker is not usually referring to the sorts of things we would usually be inclined to think of as duties: thy duty to honor thy father and thy mother and so forth. Instead, he is usually referring to structural or stylistic must-​haves or must-​dos in music—​to which, however, he assigns great ethical gravity. Uniquely within post-​Enlightenment music-​theoretical modernity, as far as I am aware, Schenker enjoins us to weigh the merits of products of musical actions—​compositions, performances, etc.—​by evaluating those actions’ conformance to distinctively moral rules, rules the breaking of which makes the breaker liable to blame, rebuke, and punishment, not just correction or criticism. The very idea that moral rules could have something quite definite to say about the rightness or wrongness of compositional decisions concerning the niceties of musical structure or musical style probably strikes us today as a rather quaint category error. Surely those kinds of ordinances do not speak with the voice of authority to these kinds of actions. Or, for readers to whom this all feels rather more sinister than quaint, Schenker’s militant musical moralism may instead appear to represent an intolerably (not to mention intolerantly) illiberal form of Eurocentric (or masculinist, or racist, etc.) aesthetic imperialism. So anyone who intends, as I do, to argue that a sensible person could nowadays have some shred of sympathy for such a view has his work cut out for him. Deontic turns of phrase are so abundant in Schenker’s writings that exhaustively documenting them is unfeasible. It is also unnecessary, since anyone who has looked at anything of Schenker’s besides the Funf Urlinie-​Tafeln is likely to have a pretty good idea of what I am talking about. We can satisfy ourselves here by giving a handful of representative instances of “Pflicht” and similar words in Schenker’s works. (Skip ahead a couple of pages if you don’t need any persuading.) Some duties are auditory. Schenker says that there is a generic “duty to hear rationally and purely [Pflicht zum vernünftigen und reinen Hören]” (1954, 121).15 He also mentions particular duties that can be understood as specifications of this generic duty, such as “the musician’s primary duty [erste Pflicht] to hear [m. 68 of Scarlatti’s Sonata in D major K. 96...] as a melodic paraphrase of the tone A”; or “one’s foremost duty [Pflicht] to perceive the D-​sharp as leading tone of E” in Beethoven’s 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C minor, WoO 80, Variation 9, m. 3 (ibid., 120). Other duties are pedagogical. There is the “obligation [Pflicht] to teach correct hearing [zu richtigem Hören anzuleiten]” (Schenker 2001c, 9); and “we are all charged with the duty [bleibt uns allen die Pflicht] of at least setting down in concepts and words for the sake of clarification and mutual intelligibility [Klärung

266  Bryan Parkhurst und Verständigung] what a genius like Bach knew from his direct experience [unmittelbares Erleben]” (2014b, 52). Musical Selbstbildung—​self-​formation and self-​cultivation—​is also a duty. Schenker speaks of “thoroughness of musical training” as “one’s primary duty [erste Pflicht]” (2004, 164), and holds that “art demands that humankind be held accountable to this duty [besteht ihr gegenüber eine Verantwortlichkeit der Menschheit], and to the duty of cultivation [die Pflicht zur Pflege]” (1992, 24). Composers are duty-​bound in many ways. For example: “The significance of scale-​steps results is an obligation [Verpflichtung] for the artist to work out the step-​progressions all the more carefully the more leeway for his voice-​leading he goes about requesting from the scale-​steps, as it were—​a duty [Pflicht] that today, unfortunately, is often disregarded” (1954, 174). Schenker does not flinch at the strange implications of the assertion that a composer’s selection of these and only these notes at a specific juncture of a piece is somehow ordained by duty: “After having written as follows: [mm. 26–​28 of Beethoven Op. 110 mvmt. 1] the master considers it his duty [erachtet er es für seine Pflicht] to respond to the newly achieved register this way in the next theme: [mm 28–​31 of Beethoven Op. 110 mvmt. 1]” (Schenker 1992, 175). Unsurprisingly, but still oddly, the seemingly purely descriptive formal-​structural categories whose “discovery” was Schenker’s claim to fame are, to his own way of thinking, imbued with deontic import. He makes this clear when he refers to “the scale step as a duty in composition [Pflicht zur Stufe in der Komposition]” (1954 174), to “the duty of the Urlinie,” to the “bond of obligation to the descending fundamental line [Gebundenheit an eine fallende Urlinie]” (2001c, 112), and to the “obligation [Bindung] to the structure [i.e., to] coherence [Zusammenhang]” (2014b, 115). Finally, Schenker places his own taste for lawyerly music-​analytical disputatiousness under the rubric of the valiant fulfillment of duty. In his monograph on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, he explains why it is so important for him to thoroughly demolish, and pour salt on the earth of, other theorists’ interpretations: I regard it as precisely my gravest duty of conscience [schwerste Gewissenspflicht] to oppose every possible error, indeed because I recognize that representation of truth by itself does not at all aid and satisfy mankind unless at the same time all paths of error are blocked. What would be the use, I thought, of stating in simplest terms the truth regarding the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven unless I also prevented the occurrence that some reader or other, purely for motives of opposition, should counter me with an ad hoc and wantonly contrived, totally ill-​conceived, and wholly aberrant “interpretation”! For this reason, then, it came to pass that I took a special interest in vitiating opposing interpretations. (Schenker 1992, 15) In Harmony, Schenker takes up this Carthago delenda est demeanor toward composers rather than toward other music theorists:

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  267 In those cases, however, where the composer unambiguously reveals an intention to ruin the diatonic system, we have not only a right but, more than this, the moral duty [die moralische Pflicht] not only to expose [brandmarken] the deceit against our art but also to unmask [bloßstellen] the lack of artistic instinct that manifests itself here [...] (1954 290) Duty, we see, is an idée fixe for Schenker. What’s more, on multiple occasions Schenker invites us to connect the dots between his own deontically inflected music-​analytical idiom and the precepts of Kant’s moral philosophy. For instance, in The Masterwork in Music Vol. II, Schenker boasts that the music of the great German masters ... alone has proved itself of its own accord equal to the task of cultivating synthesis. [Synthesis] is, so to speak, a categorical imperative in the realm of art [sie ist gleichsam ein kategorischer Imperativ der Kunst] and is in this sense alone constructive [schöpferisch]. (Schenker 2014b, 129)16 (I will return in a moment to the tension between Schenker’s German chauvinism and the absolutely non-​ parochial categoriality of the Categorical Imperative as Kant understood it.) As is well known, Kant argues, first and most pointedly in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, that all duties can be derived from, or are in some other way dependent on or referable to, a single supreme duty, the Categorical Imperative (CI). In its “First Formulation” (the “Formula of Universal Law”), the CI states that, whoever you may be, and whatever circumstances you may find yourself in, you are obliged to “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (Kant 1997, 31). How best to interpret this formulation, and how best to spell out its relationship to Kant’s subsequent, different formulations of the CI is one of the thornier debates in Kant scholarship. For our purposes there is no need to get deep into the weeds. (Later, though, I will use the “Second Formulation” of the CI, the “Formula of the End in Itself,” as a lens through which to view Schenker’s notion of “synthesis.”) Suffice it to say that, in its First Formulation, the CI is something like a supercharged Golden Rule: it tells us that our foremost duty is to not make exceptions of ourselves or engage in special pleading on our own behalf. We must act only according to principles that all others can equally adopt. And, significantly for the arguments about Schenker’s ethics that I will make in a moment, the First Formulation can be construed as a formal test for the objective justifiability of principles of action: only if a maxim has the right form or shape or structure could it conceivably be adopted by everyone without undermining itself, and thus pass the universalization test.17 Schenker refers to the CI at least seven other times in his published and unpublished writings. In an analysis of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony from the first Tonwille pamphlet, Schenker says that Beethoven

268  Bryan Parkhurst strives first toward the nodal point of a fourth, b-​flat (bar 209), and indeed only—​what a categorical imperative of the ear!—​because he wanted to offer up, sacrificially, an explicit association between the earlier fourth-​ progressions and this one, even in the midst of a transitional passage! (Schenker 2004, 32) Schenker brings up the CI in his diaries, in most cases without relating it directly to music. In September of 1912, Schenker identifies “consciousness of a positively regulating categorical imperative in the field of morality [positiv regulierender kategorischer Imperativ auf dem Gebiete der Moral]” as an excellence in literature, or in creators of literature: [George Bernard Shaw’s] intellect thus seems, as I have already said, incapable of defining the ultimate cause of human misery. If he honestly had to explain why in Fanny’s First Play the youth is just as much at fault as the elderly, bad habits as much as tradition, religion as much as f­ ree-​spiritedness, etc., then it would be impossible to have conceived the play as he does! (With Ibsen, too, the same mistake prevails!) Contrast this with the complete consciousness [of] a positively regulating categorical imperative in the field of morality, in which our great poets inclined their plays in the direction of that which is good. They did not leave their audience unclear about that which alone was good, and for which reason. They worked towards the salvation of the human race, without expressing bitter thoughts about its being beyond redemption. By contrast, Shaw is quite simply preoccupied with the irredeemable, and is thus prevented from transmitting the redemptive ideas! (Schenker 1912)18 In December of 1914, categorical imperatives (in the plural) make their way into the fray as Schenker fulminates against the English: If it is true that the English belong to the stock of Germanic tribes, then one would in any event have to regard them as degenerate sons of the stock, as a kind of lost sons, of the sort that often occur in respectable families. If faithfulness, true piety, and strict fulfillment of duty are categorical imperatives for the Germans, then the inclination towards these virtues is found also among the English, except that the Germans practice virtues whereas the English merely imagine them, parading them superficially and hypocritically in order to make business deals with them. But even with this superficial showing-​off they distinguish themselves from other nations, who cannot speak at all of such virtues. (1914) In February of 1916 (Schenker 1916), Schenker says, cryptically but believably: “The categorical imperative is something one would like above all in

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  269 businessmen.” He goes on: “Kant of course has it in any event! The state, too, must finally become acquainted with it!” In December 1918, in a tirade against the Allied Powers of WWI, Schenker says, even more cryptically: “As one sees: easier to master and administrate than Kant’s categorical imperative.” Schenker seems to be claiming that bureaucratically dominating and administratively managing other people’s lives is easier than following the CI, which in certain formulations patently forbids paternalism and the coercion of others. In April 1919, Schenker bemoans the decline of social “synthesis,” by which he seems to mean bürgerliche Gesellschaft in something near to Hegel’s sense of that term: civil society understood as distinct from the state and as inclusive of economic institutions (guilds, businesses, etc.). Schenker is bothered by economic free riders who disregard the “categorical imperative of work”: Jesus’ teaching, so far as it has been accurately transmitted, takes no account whatever of human character. It promises the kingdom of Heaven and provides a recipe for it without being concerned by the fact that human beings are interested in it only when advantage beckons. And now even the national economists in their naïve way presuppose [an acceptance of] the categorical imperative of work [kategorischen Imperativ der Arbeit] as something self-​evident, that is, precisely the one element that can without further ado be discounted [abstreichen könnte] in most people, since for them the only welcome synthesis is one that maintains and nourishes them and frees them from work. It is not only the so-​called capitalists who like to let other people, and capital, do the work for them: the same applies to the poorest of the poor. Thus every theory is a mistaken theory if it excludes compulsion. (Schenker 1919a)19 And in July 1919, Schenker adapts a famous apothegm from Kant’s second Critique, which reads: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more frequently and persistently one’s meditation deals with them: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me” (Kant 2002, 203). Schenker writes: “I make a variation on Kant: Above me the star-​studded sky of our greatests and the glaciers [der gestirnte Himmel unserer Größten u. die Gletscher], inside of me the categorical imperative of truth” (1919b). (Context suggests that Schenker may have received a postcard with a picture of a mountain glacier on it.) 8.3 Schenker’s Ersatz Kantian Ethics? Both Schenker and Kant make duty the axis around which much of the rest of their thinking turns. And Schenker appears eager to agree with Kant that “the categorical imperative, [...] must contain the principle of all duty” (Kant 1997, 34)—​including musical duty. This correspondence may seem striking and suggestive. But we are still a long way from having shown that Schenker

270  Bryan Parkhurst is a fully-​fledged “Kantian ethicist” of music, for at least three reasons. First, not to beat a dead horse, the quotations earlier show Schenker moralizing, not ethically philosophizing. Perhaps his moralizing hints at some ethical philosophizing going on sub rosa—​but that remains to be seen. Second, Kant has no monopoly on the concept of duty, so the mere fact that Schenker says “Pflicht” a lot does not do much to prove a philosophical debt to Kant. And, third and most importantly, those who know what Kant means by “Categorical Imperative” will worry that Schenker is playing fast and loose with the term. To a well-​versed reader of Kant, it will seem clumsy at best, and at worst totally nonsensical, when Schenker speaks of a CI “in the realm of art,” “of the ear,” “of work,” “of truth,” or, most preposterously, “for the Germans.” These qualifications contradict the “categorical” half of “Categorical Imperative.” “Categorical,” as Kant uses it in this context, just means “without qualification or limitation.” There’s no room for debate, if what we are talking about is the incontrovertibly agreed-​upon core meaning of Kant’s texts, about whether the CI is a genus that has species distinguished by differentia. It’s not. To speak of it as though it were is an objective error of interpretation, if anything is. Kant decidedly rejects the idea that there are or could be different CIs for different realms of endeavor (“in the realm of art” as opposed to elsewhere), for different sense modalities (“of the ear” as opposed to the eye), or for different stocks of people (“for the Germans” as opposed to the French). Quite to the contrary, Kant says that the CI is “ein Einziger” (1997, 31)—​one of a kind. There is one and only one CI, though it can be couched in different formulations that give different verbal expressions to, and that take different normative perspectives on, the one and only universal moral law.20 “Categorical Imperative,” it follows from all this, is not a catch-​all term for whatever it may behoove someone (or just some German?) to do in whatever situation she finds herself in, which is how Schenker looks to be using it. Less still is it a fitting term for Schenker to use when praising Beethoven for doing what Beethoven happened to want [wollen] to do (“he wanted to offer up, sacrificially, an explicit association …”). To do something from inclination or desire is, for Kant, precisely not to do it purely for the sake of duty, and it belongs to the very concept of duty that it can (and, for us finite—​non-​divine—​human agents, can be expected to) conflict with what one would like to do. Even the idea that the CI, as the sole supreme ethical benchmark, is an Urprinzip from which we might deduce the specific content of some subordinate “duty to hear correctly,” and the idea that we might on that basis prescribe a manner of musical listening to which everyone must adhere, sounds pretty un-​Kantian.21 Kant nowhere mentions “duties” of perception, because he does not think of perception as something willed or purposed. Although perception is in some sense something that is done (it has an “active” component, the application of concepts to the passively received deliverances of sense), it is not a deed, a deliberate act, so it does not fall within the compass of duty. True, Kant’s “pure concepts of the understanding” (such as the category of causation) are “rules” for empirical

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  271 (i.e., perceptual) experience. They are something like normative preconditions for the possibility of coherent, contentful thought and awareness. But these norms are not moral norms, for we could not violate them even if we wished to.22 (This renders senseless the idea that it could be naughty to violate them.) It’s not up to us whether the world shows up to us as a system of causes and effects. And Kant argues that the normativity of the beautiful in art—​ the universal claim made on everyone else’s assent by aesthetic judgments of artworks—​is likewise nonmoral. The validity of judgments of the beautiful is rooted in our shared judgmental capacities and structures of sensibility (our “sensus communis”), not pure practical reason.23 So aesthetic normativity is distinct from the moral normativity of the CI, and has a separate point of origin altogether. It is not happenstance that the term “categorical imperative” does not appear anywhere in Kant’s third Critique; Kant does not see the CI as having all that much to do with aesthetics (or with biology). Thus, at what I shall call the “foreground” level of Schenker’s writing—​the level of those philosophical quotations and allusive vocabulary choices that lie on the “textual surface”—​there are, apparently, diametric conflicts set up between how Kant wishes to be understood and how Schenker wishes to understand Kant. (I will explain in a moment how other, deeper interpretive levels come into consideration.) These sorts of incongruities lead Rytting (1996) to the damning conclusion that Schenker’s “writing betrays no evidence of his having ever read Kant carefully or understood his philosophy with any sophistication” (89). The incriminating passage Rytting fixates on is Schenker’s diary entry that contains the oddball “Teutonic imperative” I quoted already: “for Germans, loyalty [Treue], true piety [wahre Frömmigkeit], and the strict performance of duty [strenge Pflichterfüllung] are a categorical imperative.” As Rytting somewhat correctly notes, Kant frames the categorical imperative in general form because it is a canon by which any specific maxim can be judged, so the three terms in Schenker’s list, “loyalty, true piety, and the strict performance of duty” would be judged by the categorical imperative rather than instantiate it. The terms in Schenker’s list could be candidates for validation by the categorical ­imperative—​especially the performance of duty is one of Kant’s central concerns. Even so, they are not examples of the categorical imperative. Schenker’s text betrays no awareness of this disparity, for he neither qualifies nor explains his casual usage. Instead, he writes as if the term denoted absolute moral obligations in general. (83–​84) Notice that I say “somewhat correctly.” It is true that Schenker is technically wrong to say that “loyalty, true piety, and the strict performance of duty are a categorical imperative” (with an indefinite article). Loyalty et al. may be commanded by the CI, but they cannot be it, for the CI is unique, simple (it is not a grab-​bag of disparate instructions), and, in its generality, not reducible to

272  Bryan Parkhurst or analyzable in terms of a set of particular obligations. But Rytting is just as technically wrong to claim that loyalty et al. are “specific maxims.” What I am about to say may sound like a self-​indulgent exercise in terminological pettiness, but I think it matters. A maxim, for Kant, is a “subjective principle of human actions” (Kant 1997, 37, emphasis in original) or a “subjective principle on which we might act if we have the propensity and inclination” (ibid., 34).24 Maxims, as Kant understands them, are our (mental representations of) plans or policies or directives for what to do, in some actual or potential scenario, in order to realize some end or goal. An example Kant gives of a maxim—​one that he thinks fails to pass the test administered by the CI—​is the action-​plan expressed by the statement “from self-​love I make it my principle to shorten my life when its longer duration threatens more troubles than it promises agreeableness” (Kant 1997, 32). This maxim enunciates an intended course of action (suicide) undertaken to fulfill a desire or satisfy a preference (foreshortening a period of suffering). Hence, although “strenge Pflichterfüllung” could perhaps be construed as either a means (“I will make my mother proud by strictly fulfilling my duty”) or an end (“I will strictly fulfill my duty by making my mother proud”), it does not, without supplementation, have the bipartite plan-​and-​reason structure that is paradigmatic for Kantian maxims and that makes them judgeable by the CI. Even more problematically, the fulfillment of duty (de dicto, i.e., under that description) is not at all the sort of means or end Kant has in mind when he talks about maxims. For instance, Kant writes: I have, for example, made it my maxim to increase my assets by every safe means. Now I have a deposit in my hands, the owner of which is deceased and has left no record of it. Naturally, this is a case for my maxim. Now I want only to know whether that maxim can also hold as a universal practical law. (Kant 2002, 40)25 But the question of “whether that maxim can also hold as a universal practical law” cannot similarly arise for the “maxim” of “strict performance of duty.” The fulfillment of duty is what the CI is the touchstone for: the CI gives us a way of checking whether our contextually specific intentions are consistent with context-​independent demands laid on us by duty. Wondering whether a “maxim” of “strict performance of duty” is consonant with the CI, then, would be tantamount to wondering, pointlessly, whether duty-​doing is dutiful. Hence if maxims are such as to be nontrivially assessable by the CI, then “strict fulfillment of duty” is not, as Rytting says it is, a maxim. On top of all this, “loyalty” and “true piety” are not even doings in the requisite sense. They are virtuous traits of character that can be manifested by actions, not action-​plans that could be implemented in particular action-​scenarios. Thus, pace Rytting, loyalty, and true piety, as was the case for the strict fulfillment of duty, are not “candidates for validation by the categorical imperative.” (The maxims “to demonstrate loyalty, I will loan my brother $1,000” and “for the sake

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  273 of cultivating true piety, I will attend Holy Mass at St. Peter’s this Sunday” would, as suitably bipartite maxims, be candidates for validation.) It looks like Schenker is only marginally, if at all, more guilty than Rytting of using “Kant’s terminology as though he were not aware of its technical meaning” (Rytting 1996, 89). The point of the foregoing was not to exonerate Schenker or to excoriate Rytting. Rytting is quite right that Schenker is stricto sensu quite wrong about the CI. But diagnosing where Rytting’s critique loses its way was a convenient way of introducing some of the elements of Kant’s practical philosophy that we will need to keep at the front of our minds as we move forward. 8.4  Levels of Interpretation I do not at all deny that Schenker is sometimes overly cavalier, even embarrassingly solectistic, when he tosses off Kantian phraseology. However, I do not think that a charitable reader of Schenker can rest content with having tallied up the obvious discrepancies between Kant’s authoritative teachings and Schenker’s Kantian obiter dicta. Schenker’s allusions to Kant (and to other philosophers) are, as Korsyn nicely puts it, normally “genuflections before a cultural icon,” not “confessions of intellectual indebtedness” (Korsyn 1988, 5)—​and, a fortiori, not professions of intellectual mastery of Kantian arcana. Schenker is not trying to advertise that he is a rechtgläubig Kantian, so it is fatuous to chide him for his uncareful or unorthodox use of Kantian shibboleths. The interesting hermeneutic issue before us is not how idiomatically Schenker chooses to speak Kantese. What provokes genuine philosophical reflection, as opposed to scholastic scorekeeping, is instead the question of whether situating Schenker’s commitments within the conceptual schematics of Kant’s system leads to a deeper appreciation of both the substance and the viability of those commitments. Schenker’s Kantianism may, in the final analysis, sit at the level of a “philosophical Ursatz”—​look at me using Schenker’s terminology as though I were “not aware of its technical meaning”!—​rather than purely at the level of a handful of localized Kantian embellishments. Let it be understood, then, that my guiding question is: “is the axiological content of Schenker’s works susceptible to being elucidated with the assistance of conceptual tools borrowed from Kant’s practical philosophy?” In advancing the interpretation that Schenker’s “ethical” ideas are “Kantian,” I mean to be answering in the affirmative this and only this question. To earn the right to give an affirmative answer, I need to show more than that Schenker is moralistic, preachy, and hung up on duties in ways that faintly savor of Kant. I must show that his evaluative judgments emanate from a theory of value that can be excavated from his texts, and I must show that the most effective machinery for excavating this theory of value is Kantian machinery. What is a propitious way to go about this excavation? We will do the most justice to Schenker, I suggest, if, keeping faith with Schenker’s reliance

274  Bryan Parkhurst on “metaphors of depth” (Watkins 2011, 20 et passim), we acknowledge that there are multiple interpretive levels or layers (Schichten) at which Schenker’s ethical Kantianism can be identified and assessed. Tidily, there are precisely four such levels. These alternate in their appraisive “valence,” that is, in how wise they make Schenker out to be; at the first level, Schenker is a sophomoric pseudo-​Kantian, at the second a respectable neo-​Kantian, at the third a deficient sub-​Kantian, and at the fourth a visionary a post-​ Kantian. More exactly, and as a bill of particulars enumerating this essay’s overarching interpretive theses: 1 Pseudo-​Kantianism. At a superficial “foreground” level, as Rytting’s maladroit critique of Schenker sought to bring out, some of Schenker’s ethical formulations sound merely “Kant-​esque” or “Kantoid.” Certain passages give us the impression that Schenker has read a smattering of Kant and “coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him,” as Marx (1976, 103) says in describing his own proclivity for playing around with Hegel’s façon de parler. Having already taken Rytting to task more than is decorous, I will not say anything further about this interpretive level. 2 Neo-​Kantianism. On the other hand, at a slightly deeper “late-​ middleground” level, these same ethical formulations can be shown to make a fair amount of Kantian sense. Kant’s ethics cannot be adequately grasped unless we discern within it a tripartite division of labor. Different philosophical tasks are carried out by (1) Kant’s substantive account, based on respect for the end-​status of persons, of what it is to have a “good will”; (2) Kant’s formal account, based on universalizability, of the criterion (the First Formulation of the CI, already briefly discussed) for testing whether one’s maxims accord due respect to necessarily end-​statused persons; and (3) Kant’s virtue-​centered account of moral self-​perfection, which analyzes those features of character and temperament that foster reverence for duty and promote its unfaltering, cheerful fulfillment. The first account concerns the content of the moral law, the second the form of the moral law, and the third the proper attitudinal disposition toward the moral law. The edifice of Kant’s practical philosophy is held up by these three main load-​bearing pillars. Schenker’s ethical thinking similarly involves an interplay between and among (1) a substantive account, based on respect for the putative end-​status of tones, of what musically right action (whether compositional or interpretive) consists in; (2) a formal account of how to procedurally determine whether a musical action satisfactorily respects tonal end-​status; and (3) a virtue-​centered account of musical “technique” or “mastery” that stresses acquisition of exemplary aesthetic responsiveness through the cultivation of worthy musical skills and capacities. Once we come to see the full extent of the isomorphism between Kant’s and Schenker’s practical philosophies, we will also see that what appeared to be surface-​level pseudo-​Kantianism actually has some rather impressive subsurface Kantian bona fides.

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  275 3 Sub-​Kantianism. On the other-​ other hand, at a still deeper “early-​ middleground” level, it becomes apparent that Kant’s rationale for his stance on the absolute value of rational personhood cannot also support Schenker’s analogous position that tones have a morally significant end-​ status. Kant’s “constitutivist” arguments purport to derive meaningful guidance about how to act in a morally permissible or morally obligatory way from premises about the fundamental nature or constitutive essence of rational agency itself. But (1) there is no reason to think that there are any parallel constitutivist arguments Schenker could use to buttress his corresponding view about tonal end-​status (the view that underwrites his moralism); and (2) there would need to be strong arguments of this sort if Schenker’s view about tonal end-​status were to be at all tenable. Further, the nature of Schenker’s formal test for musically right action (graphic analysis) ends up committing him to the view that beauty is objective, which Kant strenuously denies. In a nutshell, Schenker is a rational moralist and an empirical objectivist about musical beauty. He is a rational moralist because he thinks that reason tells us what it is musically right to do, that musical rectitude is a form of moral rectitude, and that musical beauty just is what results from morally right action in the musical domain. And he is an empirical objectivist because he thinks that whether a work of music is a product of musico-​morally right action (i.e., is a “masterwork”) is a matter of empirical fact for which there is a definitive test. But beauty is precisely what Kant is not a rational moralist and empirical objectivist about. This is a big deviation. 4 Post-​Kantianism. But on the other-​ other-​ other hand, at a maximally deep “background” level, Schenker has two views that can be depicted as well-​motivated, or at least intriguing and comprehensible, extensions of Kantian tenets. These are (1) “deontic tonalism,” the view that tonal relationships are governed by rationally apprehensible moral norms, and (2) “criterial formalism,” the view the formalist music analysis can and must function as a criterion of beauty and as, equally and at the same time, a moral standard. I will contend that some of Kant’s arguments about the connection between beauty and morality (from the third Critique) pave the way for adopting a normative Musikanschauung that is in the same neighborhood as Schenker’s. Succinctly, my view is that it is not bizarre to believe (something like) what Schenker believes about musical masterworks if you believe (something like) what Kant believes about how beauty can help to make us morally better. Having commenced by criticizing Rytting’s case for withholding the designation “Kantian” (insofar as it is a success term) from Schenker, I now set about crafting a tiered exegesis—​a Schichtenlehre—​in which this designation is at first tentatively reaffirmed, then problematized and partially retracted, and finally reinstituted at a higher level. Fans of Hegel will discern in this exegetical procedure a modus operandi redolent of Hegelian “dialectics” or conceptual

276  Bryan Parkhurst “sublation” (Aufhebung, on whose connection with Schenker’s interpretive practice see Parkhurst 2019). This interpretive argument is entirely about Schenker’s ethical theory, not at all about his personal ethical character. But I will have something to say at the end about how (and whether) to think about the former in light of the latter. 8.5  Late-​Middleground Kantianism Part 1: Synthesis, Rationalism, and the Tripartite Structure of Kant’s Ethics We saw that, on the immediate textual surface of his works, Schenker does not adhere fastidiously to the letter of the CI. Are there ways in which Schenker can be understood as adhering to its spirit, if not its letter? There are. The idea of a “categorical imperative of the ear” can come to seem less frivolous, less like Kant-​flavored icing on the Schenkerian cake, if this idea is considered in light of a Kantian view that could lie generatively behind it: the view that right action, action that accords with the CI, is action that treats things that are ends-​in-​themselves as ends-​in-​themselves. “Synthesis,” Schenker’s favorite word (“genius” is a close second, and “coherence” [Zusammenhang] is a close synonym26), has a bunch of meanings. But we can get straight to the heart of the matter, I think, if we view this constellation of meanings as orbiting around a single semantic core: “synthesis,” as Schenker uses it, most fundamentally stands for musical action that dutifully accords to tones an end-​status analogous to that which, according to Kant’s ethics, is appropriately and obligatorily accorded to people qua rational agents. All of the other meanings that “synthesis” accrues over the course of Schenker’s works are derivatives or satellites of that central meaning.27 At this point you might ask: isn’t this overkill? By syn -​ thesis doesn’t Schenker just mean putting notes together, com -​ posing?28 And doesn’t Kant give to “synthesis” a highly technical meaning, one that doesn’t have all that much to do with duty, and one that we should therefore not expect to help us size up the ethical content of Schenker’s works? Yes, Schenker does mean that, and yes, Kant does do that. But there is a lot more to the story. Let me begin telling the tale by noting that, as I see it, the liaison between Kant’s conception of duty and Schenker’s conception of synthesis is as or more important than either (1) the liaison between Kant’s conception of duty and Kant’s conception synthesis or (2) the liaison between Kant’s conception of synthesis and Schenker’s conception of synthesis. (The latter liaison is Korsyn’s topic in SKT.) Accordingly, I will spell out Schenkerian synthesis in terms of Kantian duty, giving almost no attention to Kantian synthesis. I mention this to stave off objections from those who know that “synthesis” is a Big Important Idea for Kant and who may balk at my seeming neglect, hereafter, of this Big Important Idea. Taking the dutiful recognition of end-​status as a starting point, we can tease out a unifying logical thread that runs through the nexus of conceptual connections in which the word “synthesis” is enmeshed in Schenker’s works:

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  277 1 Treating tones synthetically—​as ends-​in-​themselves, as duty demands—​ means treating them as autonomous individuals. The individual person’s possession of rational autonomy is, for Kant, the source of the end-​status that attaches to personhood. Accordingly, we often find Schenker talking about synthesis in terms of autonomous individuality: “Synthesis is nothing other than a tonal individual [ein Ton-​Besonderes] in the process of its own growth [in seinem eigenen Wachstum]” (Schenker 2004, 112). 2 To be autonomous, to be a law unto oneself, is to be “really free in a practical respect” (Kant 1997, 32). This form of liberty is “positive” or “enabling” freedom, as opposed to “negative” or “permissive” freedom. When one’s principles of action are rationally self-​ given, not heteronomous (imposed by an external authority), one’s principles derive from “practical reason’s own legislation” and one’s actions exemplify “freedom in the positive meaning” (Kant 2002, 49). Accordingly, we find Schenker talking about synthesis in terms of freedom as self-​enacted lawfulness: “Synthesis as such [Synthese überhaupt] is, on the one hand, “created by the human spirit [Menschengeist]” (2005, 55). But, on the other hand, synthesis is a norm that is binding upon the human spirit: “What synthesis offers [to a musician] should be a precept given to himself [Gebot sei ihm selbst] … [because the musician] came from synthesis and must return to it” (Schenker 2005, 115).29 Positive freedom, freedom through voluntary self-​subordination to self-​decreed and self-​enforced norms of conduct, is a leitmotif in Schenker’s works. Schenker directly associates positive freedom with synthesis; there is, he says, a “constraint of a higher type [Zwang höherer Art]” that is “certified solely by the synthesis of a masterwork.” And we must “detect that constraint and freely choose it” (2004, 32). More concisely, Schenker says that the “powerful synthesis [gewaltig Synthese]” is an activity in which the autonomous synthesizer, the musical Meister, “moves about in constraint and freedom [weben in Zwang und Freiheit]” (2004, 117). 3 Being “really free in a practical respect,” in addition to requiring (or consisting in) practical self-​determination, also entails that the agent be the locus of both negative rights (protections from illicit coercion, freedom from having her imprescriptible autonomy violated) and positive rights (entitlements to act, freedom to carry out what she wills). Accordingly, we find Schenker talking about synthesis in terms of rights: “Synthesis [...] presides over individual forms [einzelnen Formen], the eternity of forms by reason of their organic right to exist [aus dem Grunde ihrer organischen Existenzberechtigung]” (Schenker 1913). 4 For Kant, to belong to an ethical community of positively free agents is to be a member of “a systematic union of various rational beings through common objective laws,” that is, “a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and of the ends of his own that each may set himself)” (Kant 1997, 41). Accordingly, we find Schenker talking about synthesis in terms of the community and collectivity of essentially social, essentially cultural beings: Schenker often speaks

278  Bryan Parkhurst of “culture and synthesis” (2014a, 115; 2004b, 107) in the same breath and says that “in the world of synthesis [Welt der Synthese], the significance of reciprocal interaction, of relationship [Sinn des Aufeinanderwirkens, der Beziehung], rather than nonrelational self-​validation [An-​sich-​Geltung], is decisive” (Schenker 2004a, 90). 5 Finally, Kant holds that love is the fitting and morally correct emotion to have toward (the moral standing of) free, autonomous, self-​determining, end-​statused individuals and toward (the idea of) a perfect moral community in which each is treated as an end by all. “Love of man is, accordingly, required by itself, in order to present the world as a beautiful moral whole in its full perfection” (2009, 205). Accordingly, we find Schenker talking about synthesis in terms of a relationship of loving: “Synthesis is love [Synthese ist Liebe]. Love creates, love unifies the whole [Die Liebe schafft, bindet ein Ganzes] and love courses through the veins” (Schenker 2014a, 117). And Schenker seems to conceive of love (of and through synthesis) as having the potential to bring about a state of integral reciprocity between humankind and its artistic products, an organic totality that binds together human beings and artworks within an aesthetic-​cum-​moral symbolic practice that will allow humanity to recognize autonomous artistic masterworks as the sensuous image of humanity’s own inalienable, absolutely and infinitely valuable autonomy: “What is required for a state of reciprocity with art [Erwiderung der Kunst] is just such a love as this” (ibid.). All of these interrelated meanings of “synthesis”—​the last two of which tie in, quite plainly, to notions of organic unity that are so central in Schenker—​can be understood as anchored in the foundational normativity of the CI.30 Admittedly, Schenker never comes right out and announces that “synthesis” means granting end-​status to tones in accordance with the CI. If he did, it would not be necessary for me to spill so much ink convincing you that this is the right way to read him. And, admittedly, many of Schenker’s casual uses of the “synthesis” immediately conjure up the thought of notes being bound together, through the composer’s Godlike offices, as vital parts of a living, organic whole. But certain of his more reflective comments show Schenker gravitating toward an explicit, self-​conscious theorization of how individual tonal autonomy, as an end-​in-​itself and as a form of quasi-​personhood, is the seed from which musical organicism, and the compositional craft of creating it, sprouts forth. For example, Schenker says that it is recognition of the “egotistic-​expansive urges of the tone itself [egoistisch-​expansiven Triebe des Tones selbst]”—​that is, recognition of tonal agency—​and recognition of “the urge of the tone to lead a full life in all sorts of possible relationships” [Drang des Tones, sich in allen möglichen Beziehungen auszuleben]”—​that is, recognition of the possibility of a moral community of tones—​that enable the “artistic instinct in its deepest truthfulness [Instinkt des Künstlers in seiner tiefsten Wahrhaftigket]” to “arrive at artistic concepts” (Schenker 1954, 94). Foremost among these concepts is synthesis.31 Such statements are few and far between,

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  279 however, and for the most part my claim about the axial meaning of the word “synthesis” is one whose proof is in the pudding, in the sense that the claim about the contextual meaning of the word stands or falls with my overall, layered interpretation of Schenker’s Kantian ethics.32 Explicating Schenkerian synthesis by using concepts taken over from Kant’s ethics of rational autonomy may come to look more manifestly promising, as an open-sesame for getting inside Schenker’s “ethical imaginary,” once we acquaint ourselves with a certain duality or doubleness that Schenker assigns to the concept of synthesis. Within the Schenkerian economy of ethical notions, tonal or “artistic” synthesis shows itself to be only one side, only the musical aspect or modality, of an underlying dualistic or “bifocal” ethical principle. The other side of this principle is a social or interpersonal aspect or modality that Schenker calls “human synthesis.” “Ethical precepts [ethischen Gebote] are the highest laws [höchste Gesetze] of human synthesis [Menschheits-​Synthese],” Schenker says. And these ethical principles “cannot be understood, let alone followed, without the gift of synthesis [Befähigung zur Synthese]” (2004, 160). Thus an “artistic synthesis [Kunst-​Synthese] can be counterpoised to and can act “as a surrogate for a synthesis of humanity [als Ersatz für Menschheits-​ Synthese]” (2005, 106). (We will return to the idea of music’s symbolic “surrogacy” near the end of this essay.) These two types or guises of synthesis, the artistic and the social, stand to one another in a relation of symmetrical interdependence. In one direction of dependence, artistic synthesis requires, as its enabling social backdrop and historical-​institutional context, “culture and civilization” (2004, 12), that is, “the culture of truth and depth, which is the beginning of all freedom” (2005, 223); and this cultural precondition itself has a political precondition, namely “political synthesis [politischen Synthese]” or the “synthesis of the state [Synthese des Staates]” (2001b, xvii) (2005, 135). In the other direction of dependence, “human synthesis [Menschheits-​Synthese], like any synthesis, is first and foremost art—​art in the most elevated sense [Kunst im erhabensten Sinne]” (2004, 160). That is all to say: art requires society and culture (which require politics), and society and culture require (and in some sense are) art. In reading these and similar passages, we watch from the sidelines, perhaps with some impatience, as Schenker casts about haphazardly for a suitable vocabulary in which to express the finespun thought that synthesis, understood as the acknowledgment of end-​status wherever it may reside, can have either persons and arrangements of people, or else tones and arrangements of tones, as its object of acknowledgment. Synthesis is either (or both) person-​centric or tone-​centric. This is the main drift of Schenker’s recurring assertion that synthesis is applicable just as much to the interpersonal as to the tonal realm: The sum total of my works present an image of art as self-​contained, as growing of itself—​but, despite all infinitude of appearance, as setting its own limits through selection and synthesis. It is my fervent wish that mankind may ultimately be permitted to be guided through the euphony of art

280  Bryan Parkhurst to the noble spirit of selection and synthesis, and to shape all institutions of his earthly existence, such as state, marriage, love and friendship, into true works of art according to the laws of artistic synthesis! (2001b, xx) Synthesis, as should be by now unquestionable, is a foundational ethical concept, not just a foundational epistemic or aesthetic concept, for Schenker, one that is woven together, by myriad strands, with considerations of duty. “Masters of synthesis, in harmony with nature as well as with the eternal demands of art and ethics [Forderungen der Kunst und Ethik]” Schenker says, “established the rights and duties of tones [Ton-​Rechte und Ton-​Pflichten]” (2005, 31). The norms governing what one is permitted and required to do, to and with tones, are irrefragable prescripts ordained by the tonal-​rational faculty, our indwelling Tonvernunft (2014b, 53). As Schenker deploys the idea, “tonal rationality” is also bifocal, for it is both a capacity of the tonal reasoner as well as a feature of what results from her exercise of that capacity. Humans (can) possess tonal rationality, and so too, when all goes well, do (can) the tones that we synthetically com-​pose. Thus in Harmony Schenker says, with more of a Hegelian than a Kantian accent, that the culture’s regnant sense of harmonic relationships, which is “first revealed in an irrational state” in the history of music, “must [...] achieve cognition of itself [zur Erkenntnis seiner selbst gelangen] and bring itself to its own proper state of rationality [sich zu einer eigenen Rationalität durchringen]” (1954, 172). Nearby in the same text, he says that the composer’s task is to “create a rational relationship among those harmonies [in eine vernünftige Beziehung untereinander zu bringen] that so felicitously gather and articulate the motivic content, and to establish them on a rational common foundation [auf eine rationelle gemeinsame Grundlage zu stellen]” (1954, 173). Since synthesis in one of its manifestations simply is (the exercise of) Tonvernunft, failure to “acknowledge the highest law of synthesis [oberste Gesetz der Synthese bekennen]” (2005, 97) is not, or is not just, a dereliction of good taste. It is a lapse in rationality. To violate the “synthetic,” rationally articulated rights and duties of tones is to open oneself up to accusations of defectiveness as a musical reasoner. This is why words such as unvernunftig, vernunftlos, vernunftswidrig, unlogisch, and irrationell are the terms of sharpest opprobrium that Schenker hurls at bad music and bad musicians, just as “logical” is one of his preferred honorifics. Musical wrongness or badness is an “offense against musical logic—​logic that is absolute, in the sense that it completely abstracts from text and program” (1992, 225); and musical rightness or goodness is grounded in “strictly logical determinacy in the relationship between simple tone-​successions and more complex ones” (2001c, 18). Schenker talks this way incessantly across his entire output. The force of attrition may wear down our initial, accurate sense that this is an unusual, somewhat mystifying way to talk. Let us try to recover our original perplexity for a moment. Reason is usually thought of as the faculty of drawing conclusions from premises, of figuring out which commitments are supported

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  281 by (or excluded by) which other commitments. That is how Kant thinks of “the logical use of reason” (1996, 354), the use of reason as a tool for constructing syllogisms and drawing inferences. But how could putting sounds together musically, or apprehending how sounds are put together musically, be an affair that is explicable in terms of, or that otherwise depends essentially on, what Kant magniloquently calls ratiocinatio polysyllogistica (1996, 374)? How could “synthetic binding [synthetisch zu binden]” (2005, 142) of tones, whether it be compositional and creative or music-​analytical and appreciative, fall within the purview of logic? What could it even be for “the laws of logic and morality [Gesetzen der Logik und Moral]” (2004, 168) to serve as yardsticks for what Schenker calls “the type of rational demonstration that I apply to musical questions [Art der Beweisführung in musikalischen Sachen]” (1992, 25)? Obviously there are not literally connections of causation or logical entailment (of, e.g., necessitation/​ implication and exclusion/​ incompatibility) between items of “purely musical content [rein musikalischen Inhalt]” (2014a, 47); the first three Gs of the Fifth Sympony’s fate motive do not cause or imply the E-​flat, at least not in any normal, nonfigurative sense of “cause” or “imply.”33 Generally speaking, “purely musical content” isn’t the sort of thing about which it makes a lot of sense to ask, what deductively follows from or is causally necessitated by this? So “logic” in the sense of the study of the codified rules of different sorts of inference-​making would seem to be largely beside the point, whatever that point is, that Schenker is trying to make. What all the aforesaid shows us is that there is a puzzle about how to interpretively digest the rationalism or logicism expressed in statements such as this one: One writer hears three sections; I hear only one. Another hears three keys; I hear only one. Yet another hears rumbling notes and intensification and poetic effects; I hear tonal rationality [Tonvernunft], and no linguistic rationality [Sprachvernunft] can conduct itself more rationally than this. (Schenker 2014b, 53) Can anything be said to (1) give cash value to Schenker’s idea that music is both a “logical space of reasons,” to use Wilfrid Sellars’s (1991, 169) metaphor, and, correlatively, a sphere of duties, and to (2) lend a measure of plausibility to Schenker’s related, further assertions that (a) those reasons and duties ground or constitute the “immeasurable worth of synthesis” (2004, 150) and that (b) “the difficult art of synthesis [is] truly the unique source of all musical legislation [die einzige Quelle aller musikalischen Gesetzgebung]” (2001a, xxi)? As you might expect, I think something can be said on behalf of these ideas. The first and most pressing thing to say is that we will have an easier time unraveling Schenker’s rationalism if we take him to be concerned primarily with practical rationality as it pertains to music, rather than with “logic” in its narrower acceptation. “Practical rationality,” as Kant uses the term, refers to the faculty of setting and pursuing ends and (what amounts to the same thing) acting with and for reasons. This contrasts with “theoretical” rationality, which

282  Bryan Parkhurst is the capacity to judgmentally adjudicate matters of empirical and metaphysical truth or fact.34 (This distinction goes back to Aristotle, as many philosophical distinctions do.) A shift in perspective from the theoretical to the practical helps demystify Schenker’s “triune” view that tonality is rational, duty governed, and formally (or “formalistically”) assessable, and also his “tripodal” view that each of the three practical-​ethical statuses that tonality possesses is supported by the other two. And as an aid to effecting this shift in perspective, we can consult Kant’s answer to the question: what is it for morality to be rationally transparent, legislative of duties, and delimited by “formal” circumscriptions?35 By raising this question we risk biting off more than we can chew. For its full and adequate answer is simply Kant’s ethics in toto. But we can gain an inkling of how Kant’s ethics is distinctively rational, deontic, and formal by dwelling briefly on his Second Formulation of the CI, the Formula of Humanity. It says: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (Kant 1997, 38). And we can ask, of this “objective principle from which, as a supreme practical ground, it must be possible to derive all laws of the will” (ibid.): how does this principle, as a “practical imperative” (ibid.), arise out of, and address itself to, “pure practical reason,” that is, practical rationality just as such? How does such a prescription, given to practical reason by practical reason, induce a formal demarcation of the space of morally condonable action-​possibilities, as represented in maxims that satisfy the CI? A thumbnail sketch of the nature of rational agency, as Kant understands it, is in order here.36 Rational agents are those who can do things in a reason-​ responsive fashion, that is, for the sake of bringing about outcomes that the agents themselves have the capacity to deliberatively assess as good or desirable. A similar thing to say is: what a rational agent is is a being that can offer (and that sees itself as accountable to potential demands for) justifications, citations of reasons, for what it sees fit to do. My decision to eat nutritious food can be justified, and thereby made intelligible to others, by my appeal to how (by my lights) it is a good thing to be healthy; my own healthiness can be posited as the end of my action of maintaining a healthful diet. But once I have advanced this justification, my rational faculty ineluctably poses another question: what justifies good health? What further good is healthiness a means to? As it asks this, reason makes itself aware of the infinite regress that will ensue from the never-​ending rational pressure to continue to make and then satisfy such petitions for justification. To block the regress, reason must conceive of the idea of a final end, an ultimately justifying justifier that stands in no need of further justification. And it is itself that reason posits as a regress-​blocker, as that which has unconditioned justificatory status. This act of self-​positing is grounded in the view that the capacity for taking-​to-​be-​good (the rational capacity per se) is a condition for the very possibility of there being such a state as being to-​be-​taken-​as-​good in the first place. For there to

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  283 be things worth doing, there must be doers to whom doings can seem worthy. Even more tersely: norms of action presuppose the normativity of actors. So, the rational capacity has, and knows itself to have, a unique “value-​conferring status” (Korsgaard 1986, 196) that endows it with the ultimate standing of being an absolute end-​in-​itself, a normative buck-​stopper, a self-​warranting warranter. In short, the capacity to justify is itself (and posits itself as) the terminal justifier. And a finite reasoner—​an individual subject possessed of the capacity to justify—​having been led by such rational reflection to view the power of rational choice that resides in her own self as a justificatory ne plus ultra, must, if she is to be consistent, treat this power wherever she encounters it as equally and unconditionally valuable. Thus, concurrent with acquiring the belief that this introspectable and inalienable power of hers, practical reason, resides as well in all other human subjects—​that is, in acknowledging that other people are rational agents akin to herself—​the agent commits herself to treating “humanity,” all members of the class of rational agents, as ends (as loci of unconditioned value) and never merely as means. This commitment, which the agent acquires “constitutively”—​just by being, and knowing herself and others to be, the sort of entity that can take on any commitments whatsoever—​places a limiting condition on what maxims the agent can rationally adopt. For she cannot coherently adopt a maxim that would violate the unconditioned, final justification or end represented by the ability to adopt maxims (the faculty of practical rationality that is present in herself and other members of humanity). Willing such a violation would be a defeasance of willing itself, and would in that way defeat its own purpose (by countermanding purpose-​having in general, and thus her purpose-​having in particular). Thus the agent necessarily experiences her own agency as subject to a duty not to pursue any course of action that would abrogate rational agency per se. Just inasmuch as she reflectively deliberates about how to act, she in so doing represents herself to herself as someone who is forbidden to act in a way that would violate her own or anyone else’s status as a rational actor, on pain of irrationality. And such a violation would occur were she ever to disrespect a member of humanity by treating that person as a mere means. How, then, can the agent make certain that her maxims show due regard for the precious rationality of herself, of particular others, and of humanity in general? How can she verify that her action-​plans are not ones that, if carried out, would reduce other reasoners to the debased condition of mere means? Kant’s answer is that she can test her maxims against the “formal condition of outer freedom” (Kant 1964, 38) expressed by the universalizing strictures of the First Formulation of the CI. I can ask: if everyone were to will to act as I will to act, would this universalization of my maxim result in its practical annihilation? (This is what happens in the thought experiment where widespread deceit abolishes trust and therefore annuls the efficacy of lying as a means to any end.) If no such practical inconsistencies infect my maxim, Kant supposes, then I can rest assured that my maxim does not derogate anything

284  Bryan Parkhurst from the power of rational choice “in the person of ” myself or anyone else, and hence does not contravene reason’s (self-​ascription of) unconditioned value. In sum, rational personhood itself indefeasibly certifies the limitless value, the absolute end-​status (“dignity”), of all rational individuals.37 By issuing this certification, practical rationality imposes a formal constraint on what it can permit itself to will. In his Doctrine of Virtue (the second part of the Metaphysics of Morals) and elsewhere, Kant rounds out this account by arguing that rational agency is productive of duties in a positive sense as well as a negative sense: reason makes prescriptions as well as proscriptions. Negatively, we must avoid violating rational agency in ourselves and others; above and beyond this, we must also positively promote the fructification and refinement of rational agency in ourselves and others, and vouchsafe the possibility of reason’s efficacious, beneficent intervention in the world. This requires us to cultivate our own and others’ rationality, through various forms of Bildung and education, and to arrange the social realm so that it is hospitable to humanity’s reason-​governed and reason-​promoting projects. The power to set an end—​any end whatsoever—​is the characteristic of humanity (as distinguished from animality). Hence there is also bound up with the end of humanity in our own person the rational will, and so the duty, to make ourselves worthy of humanity by culture in general, by procuring or promoting the power to realize all [morally] possible ends, so far as this power is to be found in man himself. (Kant 1964, 51) The duty to become “worthy” of our intrinsic “humanity” (read: the duty to usher into full fruition the dignity that individual members of the human species possess through their endowment with practical reason) is in part a duty to develop our “worth” (read: our fullest rational self-​possession as autonomous, normative subjects) through the development of virtue. The cultivation of virtue involves gaining and honing those meritorious character traits that help us sustain a loving, reverent attitude toward duty and help us maintain a correspondingly dependable fulfillment of duty over the course of a human life. For Kant it belongs to the definition of virtue that virtuousness inclines one to the fulfillment of duty: Virtue is the strength of a human being’s maxims in fulfilling his duty—​ Strength of any kind can be recognised only by the obstacles it can overcome, and in the case of virtue these obstacles are natural inclinations, which can come into conflict with the human being’s moral resolution. (Kant 2009, 524) Given that we have natural inclinations that can and do run counter to duty, we have a “meta-​duty” to nurture “artificial” inclinations—​emotions, such as

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  285 joy, sympathy, and love, “that have been trained by reason to work in harmony with reason” (Louden 1986, 487). These inclinations keep us on the right moral track by channeling our actions so that they end up dutiful “by default,” that is, without our sense of duty needing to austerely subdue our immoral appetites. A virtuous agent is one who has undergone enough of what Kant calls “ethical gymnastic” (Kant 1964, 159) so that “the firm resolve to do his duty has become habitual with him” and so that “he puts himself on the road of endless progress towards holiness” (Kant 2013, 24). With the help of virtue, we can—​ through domesticated inclination and not merely through reasoned renunciation of inclination—​emancipate ourselves from those drives and appetites that threaten to subvert obedience to the CI. The virtuous agent must foster counter-​inclinations in herself that are in sync with morality and that oppose, outweigh, overshadow, or stamp out her baser instincts, for this elevates the likelihood that she will do the morally right thing any time the chance to do otherwise comes along: What we do cheerlessly and merely as a compulsory service has no intrinsic value for us, and so also if we attend to our duty in this way; for we do not love it but rather shirk as much as we can the occasion for practicing it. (Kant 1964, 158) Cheerlessness toward duty makes us less morally sturdy. So for the sake of moral fortitude and constancy of moral purpose, we ought to develop a “habitually cheerful heart” (ibid. 159) that is able and accustomed to feel joy as a corollary of moral action. In synopsis, Kant thinks that (1) humanity ought to be treated as an end, that (2) there is a formal test (universalizability) for whether the plan expressed by a maxim would treat humanity as an end, and that (3) a virtuous emotional and motivational constitution, which helps agents consistently treat humanity as an end, must be cultivated by the morally dutiful agent. As we shall see, Schenker’s musical axiology has a comparable tripartite structure. 8.6  Late-​Middleground Kantianism Part 2: Tones as Ends The following injunction precisely captures a key element of the distinctive ethical spirit of Schenker, although he doesn’t ever put things exactly so: Act in such a way that you treat tonality (or Tonvernunft) whether “in your own person” (as it is manifested both in your own musical thoughts and in the embodiment of those thoughts within your own musical compositions, performances, etc.) or “in the person of any other,” never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. That adaptation of the CI may seem gimmicky, but you’ll see that there is something to it. Exchanging the word “humanity” for the word “tonality” in Kant’s Second Formulation, as I just did, gives us a clue as to why the phrase “categorical imperative of the ear” might have seemed apt to Schenker, and might have been intended as more than just an ornamental

286  Bryan Parkhurst turn of phrase: Schenker thinks tones possess a duty-​generating end-​status. And, happily, my Schenkerian retrofitting of the Second Formulation was partially gratuitous, since Schenker does a good deal of the retrofitting on his own: Melodic fluency [...] is a kind of counterbalancing aesthetic justice [ausgleichender ästhetischer Gerechtigkeit] vis-​ a-​ vis the formal whole [Gesamtgebilde], within which each individual tone is just as much a means to the end or purpose of the whole as it is an end in itself [jeder einzelne Ton ebensosehr Mittel zum Gesamtzweck als auch Selbstzweck ist] [...] The principles of melodic fluency extend also to free composition. At first, [they do so] perhaps in a highly metaphysical and prototypical sense [höchsten metaphysischen und vorbildlichen Sinne], in that the whole of an art-​work represents nothing more than a sum of individual components [Summe von Einzelheiten] each of which is just as much an end in itself as it is a means to the end or purpose of the whole [ebenso Selbstzweck als Mittel zum Zweck des Ganzen sind]. (Schenker 2001a, 94, emphasis mine) Let us henceforth take it as read, in view of this exceptionally clear pronouncement, that Schenker’s conception of synthesis as tonal duty is based on some sort of modification of Kant’s Second Formulation of the CI. What Schenker calls the “highest law of synthesis” should be understood to denote—​most essentially, and on analogy with Kant’s Second Formulation—​an imperative to respect the end-​status of tones. Whether or not extending Kant’s concept of the CI in this manner is ultimately tenable—​I shall later argue that it is not—​the attempt to revise and repurpose the concept cannot be dismissed out of hand as lying beyond the philosophical pale (contra Rytting). Pursuing the thought that there could be a “categorical imperative of the ear,” I will show, does not automatically make Schenker guilty of crude philosophical bungling or rank naivete. Certainly he is no more guilty of those sins than is Kant when, for instance, Kant uses the term “category” in a way that departs from, but still retains many features of, its earlier Aristotelian and Scholastic uses. Conceptual slippage and semantic drift are the lifeblood of novel philosophical initiatives. The “categorical imperative of the ear” is an imperative to synthesize, that is, to treat tones as ends. And this requirement corresponds to a twofold prohibition. First, we must not subordinate tones to nontonal purposes: “The absolute character of tonal life, as initially established in the study of counterpoint, means the emancipation of tonal life from every external purpose” (Schenker 2001a, 15). This prohibition rules out what we can call cross-​domain tonal-​to-​nontonal subservience. That which is essentially and undilutedly tonal, what Schenker calls a “purely musical intention” (2005, 129) or “purely musical figure” (2014b, 22), cannot be instrumental to a goal that is other than essentially and undilutedly tonal. Second, we may not treat a tone as

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  287 though its significance were exhausted by its subordination to another tone or other tones. This prohibition rules out what we can call intra-​tonal relations of non-​reciprocal dependence. Each individual tone or individuated tonal entity must also be taken and treated, must be interpretively and compositionally handled, as more than merely instrumental to the fulfillment of the “destiny” of another tone, of other tones, of a whole work (“the destiny of the whole [Schicksal des Ganzen]” [2005, 41]), or of the entire tonal system (“the destiny of a tonal world [Schicksal einer Tonwelt]” [2004, 115]).38 This does not rule out hierarchies, asymmetries of importance, distinctions between “principle tones” and “tones of embellishment,” and so on. But every tone, irrespective of its comparative rank or station, must be regarded as bearing its own absolutely valuable aesthetic character, its own singular, sensuous telos, to which other (similarly and equally autotelic) tones are reciprocally a means. Each of a work’s tones, according to the Schenkerian reimagining of the Second Formulation, is to be acknowledged as manifesting its own uniquely qualitative why and wherefore: a tone has a proprietary what-​it-​is-​like or immanent aesthetic “haecceity” that is the tone’s proper point and purpose, called by Schenker “the destiny, the actualized personal destiny [das Schicksal, ein wirkliches Lebensschicksal]” of the tone (1954, 12). Other co-​sounding (con-​ sonant, though not in the technical acoustical sense) tones must help this tone achieve its destiny, just as it must aid and abet their effectuations of their own destinies. The picture of things that has been gradually emerging is one in which (1) Schenker applies to tones and tonality a number of precepts that Kant applies to humans and humanity, and in which (2) Schenker believes that in a musical work it is ideally the case, of tones rather than of people, that, as Kant puts it, “everyone also tries, as far as he can, to further the ends of others. For, the ends of a subject who is an end in itself must as far as possible be also [others’] ends” (Kant 1997, 39). Synthesis, then, is the mental discernment or compositional instantiation of what “can be called a kingdom of ends (admittedly only an ideal)” (Kant 1997, 41). A kingdom of ends is a utopian scenario in which “what these [moral] laws have as their purpose is just the relation of these beings to one another as ends and means,” and within which, moreover, the purpose of the laws is completely realized. Within what Schenker calls (perhaps as an allusion to Kant) a “kingdom of miraculous synthesis [Reich der Synthesen-​Wunder]” (Schenker 2005, 139), where there is a thoroughgoing “fulfillment of the law” and where “all the musical figuration is the very soul of the law” (Schenker 2005, 48), tones take on an import and importance that is analogous to the import and importance rational beings have for Kant, according to whom a rational being belongs as a member to the kingdom of ends when he gives universal laws in it but is also himself subject to these laws. He belongs to it as sovereign when, as lawgiving, he is not subject to the will of any other. (Kant 1997, 41)

288  Bryan Parkhurst I have already introduced the idea, without yet elaborating upon it, that synthesis has both a subjective aspect or guise and an objective aspect or guise. On the subjective side of things, we have an obligation to grasp synthesis. This is an obligation to “recognize in the life of the tones a life just like our own, dependant on [...] the laws of the soul [Gesetzen unserer Seele]” (2005, 217).39 We must intuit the subtlest interrelationships [die Zussamenhänge erspüren] and, as a consequence, [...] acknowledge the dignity [würdigen] of details insofar as they are autonomous [Einzelheiten für sich] as well as insofar as they serve the overall synthesis [im Dienste der Synthese]. (Schenker 2014a, 30) Considered from the angle of this recognitive obligation, Schenkerian analysis can be understood as a procedural, methodical means of bestowing appreciative acknowledgment or esteem on the special character, and the enabling (and ennobling) structural preconditions, of each tone’s sui generis qualitative telos. On the objective side of things, there is an obligation to institute synthesis. This is an obligation to bring about the universalization, within a work, of the complete realization of tonal end-​status. One accomplishes this by artistically combining tones in such a way that the defining qualitative purpose of each is served and dignified by the synthetic combination of all.40 We must, that is, “produce tonal synthesis [Tonsynthese zeugen] and be servants of tone who are blessed with the capacity of obligation [bindugsbeglückt Diener am Ton sein]” (Schenker 2004, 99).41 Considered from the perspective of this practical, compositional obligation, Schenkerian analysis can be understood as a method of assessing whether synthesis has been compositionally achieved in a work. Schenker brings this recognition/​institution duality into explicit salience for his audience when he distinguishes between “synthesis on the one hand as a concept and on the other hand as an actuality [Synthese, sowhol dem Begriff wie der Wirkung]” (2004, 68). The twin obligations of, on one side of the coin, conceptually and attitudinally recognizing and revering tonal end-​ status (in and with our minds) and, on the other side of the coin, practically and materially instituting and sustaining tonal end-​status (in the world), then, should be understood as together investing Schenker’s concept of synthesis with its preeminent sense and significance. “Genuinely artistic consciousness [echt Künstlerisch Bewußtsein]” (Schenker 1992, 158), a term that for Schenker marks the dual capacity for recognitive and institutive synthesis, is a capacity, according to Harmony, both to reflectively determine (erraten) the nature of, and to actively facilitate (fördern) the realization of, each tone’s “willed” end or maxim (Tonwille), its aesthetic prerogative as a tonal end-​in-​itself. In Harmony, this status sails under the poetic banner of “the strongest vital impulse of the tone [der stärkste Trieb des Tones]”:

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  289 We have had other occasions to admire the artist’s power of intuition [Intuition der Künstler]; but in the present context this quality deserves the most recognition: for the artist has reflectively determined the most powerful vital urges of each tone and actively fulfilled them with his own artistic means. To these means I should like to apply the comprehensive term “combination” [Mischung]. (Schenker 1954, 86, emphasis mine) In “The Urlinie: A Preliminary Remark,” Schenker expatiates on the practical institution of synthesis when he says, floridly, that the composer decrees [beschediet] for his tones a blessed destiny [gnadenreiches Schicksal] full of concordance [Übereinstimmung] between each tone’s autonomous existence [ihrem Eigenleben] and an entity lying behind and beyond each tone (as a “Platonic Idea” in music), a destiny full of disciplined cultivation [Zucht], morals [Sitte], and orderliness [Ordnung]. (Schenker 2004, 22) And in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Schenker underscores the equal cruciality of the theoretical counterpart of practical institution, that is, the conceptual cognizance of synthesis, when he says that the analyst must “perceive in an artistically true manner [künstlerisch wahr nachempfinden]” and “interpret correctly in theoretical terms [theoretisch richtig zu deuten]” the “higher interests [höhere Interessen]” of the composer’s (moral and not just aesthetic) undertaking of “aiming for the most perfect art of synthesis [auf die vollendetste Synthesenkunst abzielen]” (Schenker 1992, 48). It bears repeating that treating tones as ends does not preclude treating them as means. The analyst or composer who, respectively, esteems or institutes the “blessed destiny” of an individual tone does undoubtedly take and treat the tone as a means to various ends—​the fulfillment of the aesthetic functions of other tones and tonal configurations, the consummation of the integral purpose of the organic masterwork as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, and the carrying out of the composer’s own intention to create a well-​wrought thing of organic beauty, to name just a few relevant, Schenker-​ approved ends or purposes. But the synthesizer does not take and treat the tone as merely a means. When and insofar as the composer aims at and attains to the “most perfect art of synthesis,” each tone’s autonomous existence is at the same time upheld and set forth as absolutely valuable. (Recall that the Second Formulation of the CI does not forbid treating people as means. It forbids treating them as mere means, as purely instrumental and ergo not intrinsically and infinitely valuable.) To practically treat or conceptually take a tone thusly is to provide it with, or recognize it as having, an “independent, and also [...] musically absolute justification for its appearance [selbständige und...auch absolut musikalische Begründung seines Erscheinens]” (Schenker 1992, 235). And to do this, as a composer or analyst, is to act as the vehicle or vessel of

290  Bryan Parkhurst the “the great triumph of the absolute-​musical law [hohe Triumph des absoluten musikalischen Gesetzes]” (ibid.). To sum up, a musical work has a normatively sound (laudable, esteemable, aesthetically endorsable, etc.) way of sounding when every sound’s sound sounding (each tone’s fully actuated qualitative tonal telos) sounds in (can be heard as itself lending functional support to, as acting “beneficently” toward) every other sound’s sound sounding. That state of affairs is what a masterwork sounds forth, and it is what an analysis of a masterwork sounds out. (Sorry for how that sounded, but it does compactly convey—​though it does not establish the soundness of—​the view.) Such a “kingdom of miraculous synthesis” is a consummately self-​adequated tonal arrangement that becomes both conceptually tractable (subjectively recognizable and esteemable) and practically implementable (objectively institutable) once we properly “understand [tones as] unities that are complete in themselves [in sich geschlossene Einheiten] but are nevertheless subordinated [untergeordnete] to the purpose of the large arpeggiation of the tonic triad” (Schenker 2014b, 8). We have taken a circuitous Kantian path to arrive, or re-​arrive, at an exegetical destination where we witness Schenker cutting a familiar figure: Schenker the arch-​organicist, everyone already knows, believes that musical states of affairs in which no tone is a mere means—​because every part is for the sake of every other part, every part is for the sake of the whole, and the whole is for the sake of every part (on which set of normative conditions see Parkhurst 2017)—​ought to be brought about (objectively) and recognized (subjectively). But it has not previously been noticed that Schenker’s organicism can be derived from his (theoretically and explanatorily, if not chronologically) prior commitment to respecting the end-​status of tones. The organicist prescription is not, for Schenker, just an unsupported and unargued axiom. Organicism is prescriptable because the organic unity of musical works, and the proper recognition thereof, are what the rationally compulsory duty of respect for tonal end-​status demands. 8.7  Late-​Middleground Kantianism Part 3: Analysis as Criterial Formalism Synthesis is musical action, whether “practical” and compositional or “theoretical” and analytical. It is the taking and treating of tones as ends. And in Schenker’s system, analogously to Kant’s, there is a decision procedure that yields verdicts about whether one’s musical activities and mental representations are appropriately synthetic, appropriately heedful of the end-​status of tones. The test, as I have already insinuated, is Schenker’s technique of graphic analysis, as fully systematized in his mature publications. Both Kant and Schenker articulate a “formal” criterion of moral rightness. (Note, however, the slight equivocation on “formal,” which means something rather different in the context of Schenkerian analysis than it does the context of the Kantian CI.)42 As I have argued elsewhere, Schenker’s “method of teleo-​hermeneutic musical schematization” (Parkhurst 2017, 74) measures the

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  291 presence of synthesis, as both an “inward” aspect of the geistig representation of musical content and an “outward” aspect of the objective organizational structure of musical entities, which themselves result from creative actions guided by synthetic geist.43 Up to this point I have been sloppy. I have not gone to the trouble of carefully distinguishing among three distinct distinctions that we have used (or that we have noticed Schenker implicitly using) to parse the concept of synthesis: (1) the distinction between artistic synthesis and “human” (social, political, etc.) synthesis, (2) the distinction between synthesis as recognition and synthesis as institution, and (3) the distinction between synthesis as an aspect of musical thoughts (intentions, judgments, representations) and synthesis as an aspect of musical things (masterworks).44 All these distinctions can be brought into play in characterizing Schenkerian analysis as the engine of Schenker’s “criterial formalism”: Schenkerian analysis is the artist’s operationalized synthetic recognition of, her formulaic means of assaying, the objectively instituted synthetic organization of musical things. Put another way, Schenkerian analysis is a step-​by-​step method of determining whether a work displays the set of pervasive, reciprocal means–​ends relations between and among all its elemental constituents (and between the elemental constituents and the superordinate totality of the work) that is necessary for masterworkmanship. If the analytical endeavor succeeds in demonstrating that there is an exhaustive co-​relational tonal nexus of the right sort, then the object of analysis, the musical work, is revealed, explicitly and legibly, to have treated (or, more literally, to be a product of someone’s having treated) tonality itself, and the individual tones that are its “agential” avatars, always as a means and never merely as an end. Schenker says as much when he claims that the point of formalist schematization (of the Urlinie and so on) is to eliminate doubt about whether a compositional process or product is synthetic: The Urlinie leads directly to synthesis of the whole [Synthese des Ganzen]. It is synthesis. Since it helps us get a handle on [die Handhabe bietet] how to decide upon the interpretation of scale degrees and form in doubtful cases [in Zweifelsfällen], it makes it possible, above all, to get proper insight into synthesis [ermöglicht vor allem den rechten Einblick in die Synthese]. (Schenker 2004, 54) Many pellucid descriptions of criterial formalism can be found in Schenker’s polemic essay “The Decline of the Art of Composition” (Über den Niedergang der Kompositionskunst, Schenker 2005b). This text hammers home the point that a proof or deduction (in the Kantian sense of a juridical legitimation) of musical excellence must take the form of an “substantiation [Beweisen] such as could only have been provided by a providential synthesis [glückliche Synthese]” (2005b, 74). “Only within a fully achieved synthesis,” Schenker says, “can a [...] musical law be affirmed and demonstrated [musikalisches Gesetz behaupten und erweisen]. Synthesis, then, may be thought of as the standard

292  Bryan Parkhurst of assessment for evaluation [Rechnungsprobe für den Wert]” (Schenker 2005b, 53). Schenker links criterial formalism to tonal rationalism when he equates “irrationality [Irrationalität]”—​the word is used dozens of times in the essay—​ with “complete disappearance of all synthesis-​bearing complexity [völlige Entschwinden jeglicher synthetischen Kompliziertheit]” (2005b, 74). Synthesis, and synthesis alone, provides the aesthetic judge with a “criterion [Kriterium]” (2005b, 49), a rational test for the vindicating presence of tonal rationality within a work. Apart from the application, by tonal reason (Tonvernunft), of the criterial category of synthesis, music comes untethered from any and all evaluative points of reference: music cannot be normatively assessed in a principled way other than rationally-synthetically. Without synthesis, there is only the anomie of unsettleable conflicts between contingent aesthetic preferences and capricious tastes. “Synthesis [...] brings to music the inestimable advantage, that it makes musical legislation [Gesetzgebung] possible in the first place” (2005b, 53), and “it is in synthesis that composers develop and deploy [entfalten] musical legislation [Gesetzgebung]” (2005b, 65). Synthesis, as the sole source of (and as the sole instrument for recognizing) musical lawfulness, is necessary for there to be nonarbitrary judgments of musical value: “It is only the formal synthesis [Synthese der Form] that is in any way capable of certifying and demonstrating [bestätigt und erweist] the musical sound [das Klangliche]” (2005b, 70) and that can serve as “confirmatory proof [Beweis]” of “composers’ musical ideas and of musical sounds” [ihrer Gedanken und des Klanges] (2005b, 65). And Über den Niedergang makes it all the more plain how, in Schenker’s mind, synthesis straddles the boundary between the subjective and internal and the objective and external: “Synthesis is not merely the standard of assessment [Rechnungsprobe] of musical thoughts [Gedanken]; synthesis is also the hearable, external appearance of such thoughts [sondern auch ihrer klanglich äußeren Erscheinung]” (Schenker 2005b, 61). We can understand Schenker’s phrase “synthesis as the legitimizing power [Synthese als der erweisenden Macht]” (2005b, 121), then, as making dual reference to both the (obligation to exercise the) recognitive power of synthetic attribution—​ the power, as it were, to hear synthesis as synthesis—​and the (obligation to exercise the) practical capacity of synthetic institution—​the power to make synthesis a “hearable external appearance” by causing it to be perceptibly embodied in sounds. As Pasille (1995) has demonstrated, Schenker believed something that pretty much no latter-​day Schenkerians believe (or would admit to believing), which is that Schenkerian analysis—​Schenker’s systematic, quasi-​algorithmic method of formally testing a piece’s external structural manifestation of its composer’s synthetic musical maxims—​is the sole criterion for, or the sole manner of applying criteria so as to enable, a dispositive ascertainment of musical value.45 Without the evaluative canon provided by, or utilized in, linear reduction, Schenker thinks, musical value judgment degenerates into “the dilettante’s stubborn and arrogant insistence on his perception and his opinion” (2001a, xix).

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  293 We can close this section on criterial formalism by listing the three main normative circumstances for which Schenker uses formalist analysis as an “objective,” preference-​transcending litmus test: a Unsynthetic interpretations of synthetic pieces. If a work is amenable to a thoroughgoing synthetic interpretation, then any interpretation that does not interpret such a work in such a way (because the interpretation fails to reveal how every note is an end in itself, and thus implicitly or explicitly takes some notes to be mere means) is an insupportable interpretation. Certain of Schenker’s complaints about Rameau’s writings can be read in this light. b Abortive synthetic interpretations of unsynthetic pieces. If a work is not amenable to a thoroughgoing synthetic interpretation, it is liable to negative normative assessment. Assuming that the interpreter herself makes no errors, the failure of the attempted synthetic interpretive procedure demonstrates the work’s rational-​cum-​moral-​cum-​aesthetic defectiveness. Thus, when Schenker sets about analyzing an example that he allegedly “selected at random from rehearsal number 11 of the piano concerto by Stravinsky,” the breakdown of Schenker’s “effort to read any kind of sense into this passage [einen Sinn in diese Stelle hineintragen]” gives warrant, he thinks, to several unfavorable judgments: that (1) Stravinsky’s compositional maxims are rationally self-​defeating (“is it not the case that Stravinsky contradicts [wiederspricht] his plan where he is able to?”); that (2) Stravinsky does not allow tonal entities to be “recognized in their individuality [in ihrer Besonderheit erkennen]”; that (3) Stravinsky fails to “certify” or “give surety to” [bürgen] the tonal constituents of the passage in question; and that (4) in flouting the tonal law, Stravinsky seeks freedom but only succeeds in sabotaging it (“it is futile to purport that the all this inability to create tensity [Spannung] by means of appropriate linear progressions is freedom [Freiheit], and to proclaim that nothing bad exists in music at all”) (2014b, 17–​18). Note the unmisinterpretable presence of Kantian themes: the idea that morally wrong action is rationally self-​undercutting or self-​contradictory, the idea that moral conduct consists in respect for personhood (the recognition of individuality), the idea that the moral quality of an act can be substantiated in an authoritative manner (“certified”) by appeal to the CI, and the idea that true, positive freedom is a matter of determining one’s own will in obedience to the moral law, rather than being led by inclination or appetite to break the law. c Successful synthetic interpretations of synthetic pieces. This is the musical version of the circumstance of epistemic success Hegel describes when he says that “to him who looks at the world rationally, the world looks rational in return. The relation is mutual” (Hegel 1988, 14). Rational appreciation of what is rationally appreciable in music is Schenker’s analytical summum bonum. A properly synthetic interpretation of a properly synthetic piece, he believes, ratifies it indubitably as absolutely valuable.

294  Bryan Parkhurst 8.8  Late-​Middleground Kantianism Part 4: Musical Virtue Schenker is deeply invested in musical Bildung (philosophically and aesthetically cultivated selfhood, cultural and spiritual maturation). His works are, accordingly, pedagogical from top to bottom. Schenker, like Aristotle, thinks that education essentially involves the generational transmission of virtues. One of Schenker’s well-​known pet peeves is the supposed failure of uptake, in post-​Brahms European musical culture, of time-​honored musical virtues bequeathed by the “great masters of synthesis” (Schenker 2005, 157). Inventiveness [Erfindung], wealth of ideas [Reichtum] and, above all, a determined pursuit of musical content [Wille zum Inhalt], of course, are needed for the composing-​ out of musical sounds [Auskomponieren von Klängen]; but exactly these virtues and talents [Tugenden und Talente] are lacking in today’s composers. (Schenker 2001a, xxii) References to musical virtue in Schenker’s works very often have this tenor of lament. Schenker rues the disintegration of an imagined prelapsarian artistic-​ social polity in which collective public veneration of musical genius, and of the products of masterworkmaship, was de rigueur, and was an indisseverable part of an all-​enframing aesthetic way of life. (Schenker’s nostalgia often shades into an uncritical, illiberal hankering after the ancien regime, a crotchet of his that is by turns risible and repellant.) Subsequent to that disintegration, Schenker thinks, and prior to Schenker’s own intervention, no discernable music-​theoretical advancements were made, no steps were taken to recuperate musical connoisseurship and its ethical emoluments. “It is certain [...] that no start whatsoever has been made on a true assimilation of the moral goodness offered by the great German masters of music [von den großen deutschen Meistern der Tonkunst dargebotenen Gutes],” Schenker says (2005, 31). One aim of Schenker’s backward-​looking pedagogy is to rehabilitate currently moribund but timelessly venerable crafts: the ability to fashion correct counterpoint in the strict style, mastery of “diatony” and scale-​ steps, etc. Another of its aims—​one that is more pertinent for establishing linkages between Schenker and Kant—​is to implant within students the proper desiderative and hedonic dispositions toward music. Part of what the Schenkerian educator educes from pupils is a perfected affective attachment to music. Just as for Kant there is a morally correct way to tame and shape the inclinations, there is for Schenker a morally correct way to mold and discipline one’s capacity for being pleased by music. Schenker’s Tugendlehre, his doctrine of virtue, is not an ascetic doctrine of renunciation; hearing music in a way that avoids “sinning against the tones” (Schenker 2014c, 70) does not need to involve a sacrifice or chastisement of pleasure. On the contrary,

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  295 greater intellectual accomplishment would lead to still greater pleasure. How blissful would the listener certainly feel if he could share the master’s long-​range hearing, traversing and soaring over the broadly planned paths! If only he could! Then his fear, that a better sense of hearing might impinge on his pleasure, would turn to joy. (2004, 29) The special moral assignment Schenker sees himself as summoned to fulfill is that of bringing to light this sublime, deeply ethical [tief ethisch] and artistic interaction between genius and listener to light in a humble, unpretentious disinterested way; [... and] to initiate mankind into the art of synthesis [die Menschheit zur Synthese zu erziehen]. (2005, 115) Musical Erziehung (nurturance) and Ausbildung, according to Schenker’s Tugendlehre, have as their goal the restoration of the “law of synthesis” to its rightful place as an object of common understanding among musicians and as a communal idol and communal ideal, a notional receptacle for the outpourings of regardful, reverential moral emotions by the wider ethico-​ aesthetic community. Again, we see shades of Kant. For Kant, perfect love of the law is the ideal or asymptotic goal of moral striving. A “holy will,” as Kant uses the term, is an ideal volitional makeup that is spontaneously inclined to carry out the moral law and that purely reveres the law with no tainting admixture of contrary immoral proclivities. Such holiness is unattainable for real-​life human beings, who are always subject to a “pathological affection” of the will by desires that conflict with morality. “The highest goal of moral perfection of finite creatures [...] is a goal that man can never completely reach, namely love of the law” (Kant 2013, 81). But though we cannot attain pure love of the law, we must nevertheless seek it. So too, for Schenker musical Bildung is supposed to culminate in a state of blessedness that is constituted by perfect love of musical lawfulness: Only by the patient development of a truly perceptive ear can one grow to understand the meaning of what the masters learned and experienced. If a student, under firm discipline, is brought to recognize and experience the laws of music, he will also grow to love them. (2001c, xxii) Only those who have a “sufficiently mature” (2001c, 160) tonal sensibility honed by extensive study of harmony (the theory of Stufen) and strict counterpoint, and who, at a more advanced level, can grasp and appreciate the “sublation” or “exponentiation” of harmony and counterpoint within the prolongations and linear progressions of free composition, can love the law:

296  Bryan Parkhurst Music, as art, has no practical benefit to offer. Thus there is no external stimulus for expansion of the powers of musical creativity and music’s artistic means. The expansion of creative vision, then, must spring from within itself, only from the special form of coherence that is proper to it, and the special love contained within it [aus der in ihr geborgenen besonderen Liebe]. Therefore, the person whose tonal sense is not sufficiently mature [wessen Tonsinn nicht genügend reif ist] to bind tones together into linear progressions and to derive from them further linear progressions, clearly lacks musical breadth of vision and generative love [fehlt es offenbar an musikalischer Weitsicht und an zeugender Liebe]. Only living love composes [nur lebendige Liebe komponiert], makes possible linear progressions and coherence [...]. (2001c, 160)46 And only a genius, someone with a “holy” musical will—​note that Schenker thinks that geniuses are (or were) actual musical savants, whereas Kant thinks that a holy will is merely a conceivable idealization—​possesses a perfect love for synthesis united with an inerrant ability to call synthesis into existence compositionally: The Urlinie makes possible the miracle [das Wunder] that the great artist comprehends the most immediate and the most remote matters with the same care. No matter how much he seems to be given over to the individual moment, still his spirit is already hovering over the most distant things as well. To his love of the whole [Liebe zum Ganzen], sprung from the Urlinie, everything in the work is equally accessible. (2014a, 110) 8.9  Early-​Middleground (Un-​)Kantianism Schenker, I have contended, (1) postulates an “unconditioned” source or locus of musical value (tones as end-​in-​themselves), (2) devises a formal criterion for determining whether a musical “maxim” satisfactorily respects tonal end-​ status (the procedure of graphic analysis), and (3) elaborates a Tugendlehre, a doctrine of worthy musical proficiencies, apt musical feelings, and fitting musical dispositions. We behold, therefore, a conspicuous homology between Schenker’s threefold musical axiology and the main lineaments of Kantian practical philosophy, with its three overlapping precincts, viz., its account of rational personhood, its formal decision procedure for moral action, and its body of teachings on virtue. This homology is nested within a higher-​level homology between the triadic Bauplan of Kant’s critical philosophy in the large (as set out in his three Critiques) and the triplicity of Schenker’s overall philosophy of music, which addresses (though sporadically, and as a kind of bricolage, with none of the structural, systematic trappings of Kant’s “architectonic” approach) the topics of pure musical reason (set out by Korsyn in

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  297 SKT), practical musical reason (set out in this essay), and musical teleology (set out in Parkhurst 2017). This observation goes some distance toward validating Schenker’s normative theory as more-​than-​superficially Kantian, for there is a marked topical concordance, at least grosso modo, between what key ideas get a good going-​over in Kant and in Schenker, not just a vaguely Kantian aroma given off by some of Schenker’s quotations and terminological choices. But it does not at all vindicate any of Schenker’s positions as true or tenable. There are many places where one might wish to dig in one’s heels. Here I will discuss only one line of objection, which I consider to be both forceful and eminently Kantian. It is this: whereas Kant provides powerful constitutivist arguments to the effect that it follows from the very nature of practical rationality itself that it is immoral to violate the humanity of others, Schenker can make no convincing, analogous case concerning the putative impermissibility of violating tonal end-​status. Earlier, I rehearsed the argumentative steps that get Kant to the conclusion that rationality, as the faculty of setting and pursuing ends, must at last set and pursue itself as an unconditioned end. Kant argues that this conclusion bears on how we ought to treat others. This is a constitutivist argument, as I already adumbrated, in that it argues that there is something in the essence of rationality that normatively binds all agents, all rational end-​setters and end-​pursuers, to certain commitments, notably the commitment to respect the humanity of everyone else. Expressed another way, it is constitutive of the use of reason that one who uses it eo ipso counts as having placed herself under an obligation to treat people as ends; to act otherwise is to proceed as though one were (per impossibile) uncommitted to what action just as such commits one to. And this way of proceeding is irrational because it is “contradictory” in the self-​abolishing or “rationally suicidal” sense: one cannot rationally will to exercise one’s agency in such a way that one’s resulting action would undermine rational willing itself and thereby jeopardize one’s own standing as an agent. This is a bold philosophical thesis if ever there was one, and naturally there are many ways of resisting it, of resisting resistance to it, etc. But whether or not it, or some suitably refined version of it, can ultimately lay claim to philosophers’ assent, the fact is that neither this thesis nor anything like it can help Schenker out very much. Schenker can have no recourse to constitutivism. The idea that rationality itself could commit us to treating tones as ends-​in-​ themselves is—​not to put too fine a point on it—​a complete nonstarter. That is because tones are not themselves reasoners, and thus do not fall under the purview of what, according to Kant, reason is self-​compelled to recognize as deserving of reason’s own respect. To return to a quotation we examined earlier, it cannot be literally true that there are “rights and duties of tones,” for all and only rational agents possess rights and duties; but, for Kantian constitutivism to be an argumentative tack that Schenker could opportunely take, it would have to be literally true that tones have rights and duties, because tones would have to be rational agents in order for tones to have the unconditioned

298  Bryan Parkhurst end-​status that the “categorical imperative of synthesis” demands that they be treated as having. One might try saying, as I regret having said elsewhere (Parkhurst 2017, 81), that Schenker could hold that it is constitutive of musicality, rather than of rationality, that one must practically take and treat tones in certain ways. An abstract of this adjusted form of constitutivism might go approximately this way: insofar as one is a “player of the musical game” at all, one is always already committed to treating tones “synthetically.” This is similar to how, in and by playing chess, one commits oneself to moving one’s bishop in no way other than diagonally. Notice: the rule of exclusively diagonal bishop movement doesn’t just regulate some activity that is independently classifiable as chess, the way the legal speed limit regulates an activity that is independently classifiable as driving an automobile. If you consistently and intentionally adhere to a norm that permits moving your bishop nondiagonally, you wouldn’t be playing chess badly. You wouldn’t be playing chess at all. By contrast, if you exceed the speed limit, you do not cease to count as driving; reckless driving is still driving. The norm of diagonal bishop movement, one may therefore say, is constitutive, and not merely regulative, of the game of chess. Similarly, a Schenkerian might try saying that taking or treating tones synthetically is constitutive and not just regulative of musical activity. Taking and treating tones nonsynthetically is “unmusical” in a logical or metaphysical, and not just an aesthetically pejorative, sense. To do something other than (institutive or recognitive) synthesis is to do something other than “musicking.” Schenker is pleased to agree with this: “There is in actuality an awful way of writing notes that does not at all deserve the name ‘music,’ ” Schenker says (2014b, 17). I used to think that this train of thought had something going for it. But I now see that the view runs afoul of several difficulties, some of them lethal. One of them is that the view appeals to a question-​begging account of musicality. Why should anyone who isn’t already a Schenkerian concede that this is what is constitutive of musicality? Why not some other, nonsynthetic norm? If we dogmatically insist that Schenkerian synthesis is constitutive of musicality, aren’t we just building a contestable, idiosyncratically Schenkerian desideratum into the definition of music? Kant’s account of practical rationality as the faculty of setting and pursuing ends does not seem to likewise illicitly smuggle arbitrary and extraneous elements into the definition of what it is to be a rational agent. Kant’s definitional starting point is judicious enough, even if his conclusions are off the beaten path, and even if the validity of his arguments is questionable. In contrast, the Schenkerian constitutivist pulls a rabbit out of a hat; she starts with a tendentious definition of musicality, inserted into which is exactly what she wishes to extract. This is philosophical hocus-​pocus. (Note, too, that Kant’s constitutivism, and constitutivism generally, is itself often charged with exactly this sort of clandestine bootstrapping, or and with shrouding its vicious circularity in a fog of befuddling terminology—​and Kant’s arguments are incomparably stronger than the musical constitutivism argument.)

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  299 A still deeper problem for Schenkerian constitutivism is that even if you accept what it says about the constitutive essence of music(ality), it is not at all obvious that such acceptance would furnish you with a reason to care about Schenker’s prescriptions. Why should you trouble yourself about whether what you see fit to do with tones counts as genuinely musical, according to Schenker? So what? You can simply say: This non-​synthetic activity is what I prefer to do—​compositionally, interpretively, etc.—​with tones. Say that my activity is “schmusical” rather than “musical” if you like. It is a matter of indifference to me what adjective you apply to my tonal pastime. Certainly I do not violate any code of morality by declining to synthesize tones in thus amusing myself with them—​that would be a baseless, neurotic accusation. What’s wrong with “violating” (what you call) musicality, if indeed I do “violate” it by not “synthesizing”? You would have me believe that, by not complying with your arbitrary norms of musicality, I thereby make myself “guilty” of being unmusical, and expose myself to whatever punitive consequences follow from that. But I do not recognize the concepts of guilt or culpability as having any meaningful application here, or indeed as having meaningful application in any case where the norms I “flout” are of no discernable moral significance. Kant’s arguments tell us that if we conceive of ourselves as practical reasoners at all, if we so much as self-​consciously will to act, we are by that very fact unavoidably committed to certain ends. But—​and this is what makes Kant’s arguments so nifty—​we can’t act so as to give up on being reasoners; we can’t, as it were, practically endorse the annulment of practical reason. After all, in attempting to do so, we’d be making ourselves subject to a requirement to provide a justification for this decision, to give a reason for renouncing reason, which just casts us back into the enchanted circle of practical rationality. So there are certain ends we necessarily commit ourselves to whether we like it or not. But nothing remotely akin to this can be said by Schenker about the supposed nonoptionality of musicality. Musicality, unlike rationality, is not rationally unrelinquishable. The abandonment of musicality-​ as-​ synthesis (assuming we are prepared to accept the Schenkerian constitutivist’s definition of musicality) might be unfortunate relative to some other independently statable values. Perhaps musicality (so defined) is indispensable to the flourishing of beings who have auditory faculties like ours. Or perhaps in the laws of musical synthesis, as is the case for “the conceptual normativity implicit in linguistic practice,” we have a model of a kind of constraint—​loss of negative freedom—​that is repaid many times over in a bonanza of positive freedom. Anyone who was in a position to consider the trade-​off rationally would consider it a once-​ in-​a-​lifetime bargain. (Brandom 2009, 75)

300  Bryan Parkhurst Even if these claims were true—​actually, the second claim, interpreted as the assertion that the constraints imposed by common-​practice tonal norms engender a particular form of positive expressive freedom, definitely is true—​it still might be rational for you to opt for schmusicality over musicality, if you yourself regard the payoffs of schmusicality as better or more abundant or whatever. By contrast, it is always irrational, Kant maintains, for the rational agent to opt to disrespect rationality itself. It comes down to something pretty basic: unlike rationality, musicality is not a faculty that has the capacity to posit itself as an unconditioned end, for the simple reason that musicality, whatever else it is, is not the faculty of setting and pursuing ends. (Reason, of course, can and does set and pursue musical ends, but this is both obvious and irrelevant.) So Schenkerian, or Schenker-​ adjacent, constitutivist arguments about musicality, even if they could be used to classify nonsynthesizers as “non-​musical”—​and one need not concede even that much to the Schenkerian constitutivist, I claimed before—​cannot bridge the gap between the nonmusical and the irrational, and thus cannot be used, a la Kant, to rationally criticize unmusicality as a variety of immorality. This is an good place to take stock of where Schenker and Kant converge and where they diverge. First, we should note (for it is a topic that I have not yet broached) that Kant believes roughly what Schenker believes about what a musical masterwork ought to be (and ought to be acknowledged to be): a “consummate organic unity” (2001c, 95). Admittedly, Kant does not hold that belief under that exact description, for Kant is not working with the exact Schenkerian notion of a musical masterwork. Kant is instead occupied with the beauty, in general, of art and nature, as assessed in and through judgments that accord with the principle of “purposiveness without a purpose.” And Kant prefers to strictly distinguish between the “organicism” of teleological living entities (“natural ends”) and the beauty of art and nature (although he identifies an isomorphism between judgments of the former and the latter). For Schenker, contrastingly, “organic” and “beautiful” may as well belong to the same thesaurus entry (along with “work of genius,” “masterwork,” “miracle of synthesis,” and the like).47 But if we zoom out slightly, we can see that Schenker’s conception of organicism maps directly, and virtually without remainder, onto Kant’s conception of the beautiful. Rachel Zuckert’s perspicuous description of what Kant takes to be represented in judgments of the (visually) beautiful could be used, mutatis mutandis, to explicate Schenker’s concept of musical synthesis, and is thus worth quoting in full: [The] heterogeneous properties of an object experienced as beautiful function coordinately with one another, are reciprocally “in tune” with one another, in our experience of the object, moreover, in a way analogous to the way in which heterogeneous parts function in an organism: they are internally related to one another, and thus dependent upon the whole. Just as a hand qua living hand is unintelligible (or not what it is) except as part

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  301 of a body as a whole, so do the vertical lines in [a Klimt] painting function in the aesthetic experience of that painting as they do in no other context. These vertical lines are what they are only as presented in combination with—​as contrasting with, complementing, highlighting, playing off of—​ the other elements of the painting, e.g., the soft blues and greens, that it is a representation of a forest, the mixture of pointillist and other brushwork techniques, etc. In my drawing of a jail, the almost-​parallel lines are not “the same” lines (even if they are the same length and distance from one another, in the same spatial position on a same-​sized piece of paper, etc.) because they are not related to, in the context of, the other visual properties of the Klimt painting. Each property serves as “means” to the representation of the particular character of the others, and each is specified, represented in its particular character, likewise, by means of the others. Thus there seems to be the same reciprocity of relations among parts, and hence the same priority of whole to part, in (the experience of) beautiful objects as there is in organisms. (Zuckert 2007, 208) We do not misrepresent Kant or Schenker, it seems to me, if we say that Kant is a Schenkerian “synthesist” about all artistic beauty, or that Schenker is a Kantian “purposivist” about musical masterworkmanship. Yet Kant flatly rejects an idea that, we now know, Schenker warmly embraces: that there is a “test” for whether beauty is determinately present in objects. According to Kant’s treatment of aesthetic judgment there is no fixed criterion that one could employ, no set of determinate “marks” one could point to, to conclusively demonstrate, in a rationally compelling manner, that something is beautiful. If there were, beauty would be “objective,” and we would be able to validly infer that something is beautiful from some set of empirical premises about it. But one of the major conclusions of Kant’s “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” (in Part One of the Critique of the Power of Judgment) is that beauty does not work this way. Judgments of the beautiful do indeed have the force of necessity and universality. They demand the assent of everyone, like ordinary empirical judgments (“the apple is red”) and moral judgments (“murder is wrong”), but unlike judgments of the agreeable (“ice cream tastes good”). However, judgments of the beautiful are nonetheless nonobjective in two senses: first, judgments of the beautiful do not purport assign to a spatiotemporal object a well-​defined, generic attribute to which there corresponds a finite set of verifiable necessary and sufficient empirical features; and, second, unlike moral judgments, judgments of the beautiful are not necessitated by an “objective law of reason” (Kant 1997, 24), that is, by “objective laws of volition in general” (Kant 1997, 25). Hence, Kant concludes, “there can be no objective rule of taste, no rule of taste that determines by concepts what is beautiful” (1987, 79), and “this is why there can be no rule by which someone could be compelled to acknowledge that something is beautiful” (1987, 59).

302  Bryan Parkhurst The long and the short of this is that, in Kant’s estimation, there is no “rule” for what is beautiful, either in the form of an empirical “recipe” one can and must follow to fashion a beautiful object, or in the form of an a priori commandment of reason compelling our acknowledgement of and esteem for the presence of beauty under certain specifiable, detectable, rationally transparent circumstances. Sharply dissenting from this view, Schenker holds that there is an articulable empirical criterion for musical excellence, namely, graphability.48 This is an immediate corollary of—​or simply is the view we have labeled as—​Schenker’s criterial formalism. And Schenker holds (indefensibly, as I have argued) that it is true a priori that recognitive synthesis is demanded by reason under certain (a priori knowable) well-​defined tonal circumstances. Thus Schenker represents judgments of masterworkmanship as having both kinds of objectivity, empirical and moral, that, for Kant, do jointly exhaust the sphere of the objective and do not, in either instance, pertain to aesthetic judgment. This is what I meant when I said, near the beginning, that Schenker is a Kantian empirical objectivist (because he is a criterial formalist) and rational moralist (manqué, as we saw, since Kantian constitutivism is no friend to Schenkerian rationalism) about aesthetics. And aesthetics is not something that Kant himself is a Kantian empirical objectivist and rational moralist about. 8.10  Background Kantianism Let us briefly retrace the winding route that got us to where we are. First, we examined some prima facie objections to Schenker’s “Kantoid,” but not authentically Kantian, use of Kant’s lingo. Then, by ascending from the “foreground” to a “late-​middleground” hermeneutic level, we found a justification for thinking of Schenker as an echt Kantian ethicist of music. For we discovered that Schenker has a substantive account of what is musically right (i.e., permissible and/​or obligatory)—​of what is congruent with “tonal justice [Tongerechtigkeit]” (Schenker 2005, 148)—​and discovered that this account is premised on the supposed necessity of a form of respect: musically right actions are those that respect tones as ends; and excellent music is the product of musically right action. This rational injunction, Schenker believes, generates particular, and signally moral, musical duties—​stylistic codes of conduct the breach of which appropriately summons incrimination or censure of one’s action as wrongful, as instances of “moral and artistic mischief [moralischen und künstlerischen Unfug]” (Schenker 2014b, 130) or instances of “turpitude of musical life in general” (Schenker 1988, 134).49 Likewise cast in a Kantian mold are Schenker’s conception of the formal touchstone (graphic analysis) that allows for the verification of the fulfillment of musical duty, and his Tugendlehre, his theory of how to properly nurture elevated musical aptitudes and correctly educate our attitudes vis-​a-​vis tonal lawfulness, so as to inculcate a stable tendency to joyfully fulfill duty, to love the law. But then, after we ascended once more and gained an “early-​middleground” interpretive vantage point, we saw that, in contradistinction to Kant’s practical

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  303 philosophy, Schenker’s musical axiology lacks, and cannot be provided with, a robust “constitutivist backing.” Schenker cannot appeal to rationality per se to ground the code of musical conduct he upholds. And if his appeal were instead to some allegedly constitutive essence of musicality, this maneuver would be criticisable, to a far greater degree than Kant’s account is, for being both grossly question-​begging (for it extracts from the concept of musicality no more than what it stipulatively puts there: the requirement of synthesis) and bereft of even a modicum of reason-​giving moral force (since giving up on synthesis cannot plausibly be condemned as irrational or immoral). Thus we seem to have fallen short of discovering a Kantian rationale for two defining, and at first blush noteworthily Kantian, features of Schenker’s enterprise: his concentration on musical duty, which may have seemed promising to connect to Kant’s “deontology,” and his conviction that the fulfillment of musical duty is formalistically testable, which it seemed promising to connect to the First Formulation of the CI. The fly in the ointment is that, on the one hand, we can’t make good Kantian sense of Schenker’s assertion that by “supplying all that musical tones require by their very nature and by virtue of art itself [von Natur und Kunst aus], genius at the same time brings the morality of justice [Moral der Gerechtigkeit] to fulfilment” (Schenker 2014c, 70); for Schenker simply assumes as given, but gives us no clue about how to substantiate the existence of, a tight logical connection between musical excellence and the moral law. And, on the other hand, we can’t make good Kantian sense of the idea that graphic analysis serves as a sure test for whether tones have been given “everything that they require by nature and by virtue of art,” since, according to Kant, beauty does not have necessary and sufficient objective perceptible conditions, that is, marks (Merkmale) the accurate detection of which could ensure the correct application of the predicate “beautiful.” In both of these respects Schenker goes beyond certain limits—​limits on the scope of rationally apprehensible moral duty and on the evidentiary verifiability of judgments of aesthetic value—​laid down by Kant. However, as I shall conclude by contending, there is some degree of pressure, palpable in Kant’s own texts, to go beyond Kant in something like the way Schenker does. What follows is an unavoidably cursory rundown of the relevantly unstable, self-​transcending, proto-​Schenkerian parts of Kant’s aesthetic theory. I do not present these closing considerations as final or unanswerable. Clever Kantians will have their ways of shoring up Kant’s aesthetics to downplay the instabilities I gesture at. I mean only to entertain the possibility that the main stream of Kant’s aesthetic theory might, if allowed to, overflow its own banks and spill into Schenkerian territory. This confluence of Kant’s and Schenker’s theories—​a speculative confluence, because it moves past Kant’s official positions—​sits at our final, “background” level of interpretation. Kant does not see the aesthetic realm as, centrally and paradigmatically, a sphere of moral duties, governed by a single supreme duty that exfoliates into a system of particular duties, whose germinal matrix is the structure of practical rationality itself. But he does see the beautiful and the good as, in key respects,

304  Bryan Parkhurst in league with one another. Most pertinently, for us, Kant holds that the beautiful is a symbol of morality. “Symbolic exhibition,” Kant writes, uses an analogy (for which we use empirical intuitions as well), in which judgment performs a double function: it applies the concept to the object of a sensible intuition; and then it applies the mere rule by which it reflects on that intuition to an entirely different object, of which the former object is only the symbol. Thus a monarchy ruled according to its own constitutional laws would be presented as an animate body, but a monarchy ruled by an individual absolute will would be presented as a mere machine (such as a hand mill); but in either case the presentation is only symbolic. For though there is no similarity between a despotic state and a hand mill, there certainly is one between the rules by which we reflect on the two and on how they operate [Kausalität]. (1987, 227) Kant denies that there is a direct, “adjectival” similarity between a despotic state and a hand mill, and locates the relevant analogy instead at the “adverbial” level of how we judge: we comprehend a “mere machine” and a despotic state by judging them both mechanistically (in terms of efficient causes and their immediate effects), whereas we judge constitutional states and “animate bodies” organically or teleologically (in terms of the realization of ends or purposes).50 (Note, incidentally, that there seems to be no good reason for Kant to deny adjectival similarity between things while affirming adverbial similarity between judgments of things. Despotic states and hand mills, and limited rule-​ of-​law monarchies and animate bodies, respectively, must have, one assumes, “first-​order” similarities corresponding to a shared type of observable causal activity—​“efficient causation” vs. “causation in accordance with ends”—​that each analogical pair exhibits. Indeed, if the things, or how they operate, weren’t detectably similar, what reason could there be to apply similar “rules by which we reflect on the two and on how they operate”?) Kant likewise subjectivizes and adverbializes the analogy-​ supporting similarity between the good and the beautiful by confining it to a series of a correspondences between how they are judged: (1) The beautiful we like directly (but only in intuition reflect[ed upon], not in its concept, as we do morality). (2) We like it without any interest. (Our liking for the morally good is connected necessarily with an interest, but with an interest that does not precede our judgment about the liking but is produced by this judgment in the first place.) (3) In judging the beautiful, we present the freedom of the imagination (and hence [of] our power of sensibility) as harmonizing with the lawfulness of the understanding. (In a moral judgment we think the freedom of the will as the will’s harmony with itself according to universal laws of reason.) (4) We present the subjective principle for judging the beautiful as universal. i.e., as valid for everyone, but

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  305 as unknowable through any universal concept. (The objective principle of morality we also declare to be universal[ly valid], i.e., [valid] for all subjects, as well as for all acts of the same subject, but also declare to be knowable through a universal concept.) [...] The common understanding also habitually bears this analogy in mind, and beautiful objects of nature or of art are often called by names that seem to presuppose that we are judging [these objects] morally. We call buildings or trees majestic and magnificent, or landscapes cheerful and gay; even colors are called innocent, humble, or tender, because they arouse sensations in us that are somehow analogous to the consciousness we have in a mental state produced by moral judgments. (Kant 1987, 229–​30) These are dark murmurings, indeed, and I do not know how to throw much light on them en masse; I have doubts about whether much light can be thrown on them. It will be enough, though, to point a spotlight at a few ideas: Judgments of the beautiful and judgments of morality (A) both involve uncompelled liking (liking that is not caused by the pangs of appetition), (B) both involve some kind of harmonization or reconciliation of freedom and lawfulness, and (C) both are judgments rendered with the “voice” of universality. These dimensions of conformance or compatibility between what happens when we judge something to be beautiful and what happens when we judge something to be morally good permit our judgmental encounters with the beautiful in art and nature to function, Kant thinks, as pleasurable, diverting opportunities to collaterally acquire good judgmental habits qua moral agents. The idea seems to be that aesthetic responsiveness is similar enough to moral responsiveness (which is, optimally, also a kind of “free liking”) so that a zest for the former somehow primes the judgmental faculty to consistently and correctly perform the latter. Making a habit of liking the beautiful somehow gets us into the proper esprit for manifesting “habitual moral interest,” that is, persistent sensitivity to all germane moral reasons that may come across our radar. (Kant’s arguments remind one of the Aristotelian view that athletic contests serve as an agreeable preparation for the rigors of war.) Beauty “sugars the pill” of morality, so to speak, and taste enables us, as it were, to make the transition from sensible charm to a habitual moral interest without making too violent a leap; for taste presents the imagination as admitting, even in its freedom, of determination that is purposive for the understanding, and it teaches us to like even objects of sense freely, even apart from sensible charm. (Kant 1987, 230) There are lots of exegetical challenges one could feel the need to tackle here, related to what Kant’s technical terms “imagination,” “freedom,” “understanding,” “purposive,” and “sensible charm,” mean, and related to how

306  Bryan Parkhurst they interact with one another in the argument. There are also many things about Kant’s view that just seem bizarre. I for one know too many musicians to seriously entertain the idea that those who are alive to the “sensible charm” of art tend, because of that, to be steadfast in their “habitual moral interest.” There is, as well, the worry that Kant has put the attractions of systematicity—​ the desire for there to be a profound unification of his two grand theories of morality and aesthetics—​ahead of plain old philosophical horse sense, which reacts with instinctive incredulity to his hopelessly byzantine account of moral symbolism. But I want to set all that to one side and focus on just the immediate implications of just the silhouette or main Grundgestalt of Kant’s proposal: (1) If the experience of beauty is an effective and reliable (perhaps uniquely effective and reliable) means of instilling “habitual moral interest,” then aesthetic production and reception must ipso facto be drawn into the ambit of the moral “ought.” For if Kant’s account of symbolism is true, we must, for the sake of our moral Selbstbildung, and thus for reasons that are more than merely aesthetic, pledge ourselves to making and appreciating (or at least to supporting the making and appreciating of) morally symbolic beautiful objects. (I see no reason that this conclusion would not be congenial to Kant.) And (2) if, further, a certain style of art-​making and a certain mode of art-​taking—​namely, institutive and recognitive synthesis, respectively—​are what allow art to function as a moral symbol, then that style and that mode can lay claim to moral, and not just aesthetic, priority.51 (1) says, in essence, that if Kant is right about the “semiotic” connection between beauty and morality—​a connection in which beauty is an index or icon of morality—​then there is a “beauty duty” that derives from this referential coupling. But the idea that beauty is a moral imperative is, as we have seen, a Schenkerian article of faith, not an idea Kant sets much store by (more on this in a moment, however). So this is a respect in which Kant’s ideas point beyond themselves and toward Schenkerism. Moreover, (1) also suggests an alternative, non-​constitutivist method of grounding Schenker’s musical moralism. Instead of trying to ground his moralism in an essentializing account of musicality, Schenker can take advantage of Kant’s theory of moral symbolism. For if taking and treating tones as they (aesthetically) ought to be taken and treated is requisitely similar to taking and treating moral agents as they (morally) ought to be taken and treated, and if, therefore, the laws of tonality can act as auditory symbols, in Kant’s sense, of the laws of morality, and if this symbolism helps us perfect ourselves morally, then there is a presumptive case for thinking that musical synthesis is morally obligatory, as Schenker thinks it is.52 We have already canvassed Schenker’s view that synthesis is “bifocal”: it has both a moral-​social-​political modality, related to the treatment of people as ends, and a musical modality, related to the treatment of tones as ends. (And recall that both modalities are “ethical” in a wider sense: they both concern what one ought to do.) Synthesis tout court is indifferent as between a social-​political application and an artistic application, which seems to be

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  307 Schenker’s point when he elliptically says that “political freedom [politische Freiheit]” is “an ethical concept [sittlicher Begriff] of artful-​artistic synthesis [künstlich-​künstlerischen Synthesis]” (Schenker 2004, 132). Thus when one hears musical synthesis, one also hears—​in it or through it, symbolically—​ moral synthesis: Schenker’s “revelation of the wonderful natural law regulating the flow of music in its totality,” according to the musicologist Hans Jenker, “is tantamount to an acoustic perception of the moral law” (quoted in Schenker 1954, vii). Such perception of symbolism is morally salubrious for the perceiver: The power of will and of imagination [Willens-​und Phantasiekraft], which fully enacts itself [sich ausleben] in the transformations of a masterwork, enters into us as just such an intellectual faculty of envisioning [Geist-​ Phantasiekraft] [...] The life of the transformations conveys itself to us of its own accord. It is consequently not just a loss of ourselves in enjoyment that we get out of a masterwork; above and beyond that, we receive benefits for the strengthening of our lives, an uplifting, and a vital exercise of the spirit—​one may, in the parlance of our times, speak of a spiritual gymnastic [Geistes-​Sport]53—​and thus achieve a heightening of our moral worth in general. (2001c, 6) But if, as Kant says, “the morally good is the intelligible that taste [i.e. judgments of the beautiful in art] has in view” (Kant 1987, 228), and if music, as a “reflected image of the essential motility of our existence as practical agents [Abbild unserer Lebensbewegung, 2001c, 5],” is an effective means of “heightening our moral worth,” as Schenker says it is, then of course a host of moral duties will attend the production and reception, the making and taking, of musical artworks. We will have a moral duty to ensure that our musical creations possess the sorts of formal features (and to ensure that they are appreciatively recognized as having the sorts of formal features) that enable them to fulfill their morally symbolic function; and we will also have a moral duty to ardently oppose, as Schenker does, stylistic changes in music that threaten to undermine music’s fulfillment of its morally symbolic office. Musical synthesis, though perhaps not of intrinsic moral import (as on the constitutivist view), would be, insofar as it is the enabling basis of moral symbolism, instrumentally valuable for pursuing the end of moral self-​betterment. This instrumentality brings music squarely within the remit of moral imperatives. Something similar is true of the virtues, as Kant describes them. There are moral norms commanding the cultivation of virtue, because virtue is instrumentally valuable as a means of safeguarding intrinsically valuable adherence to the moral law. So too, if musical symbols of morality are exceptionally beneficial for supporting our moral vocation, then surely there must be associated moral norms governing our customs and habits of producing and consuming such symbols. At one point, Kant quietly agrees with a version of this conclusion,

308  Bryan Parkhurst and seems to momentarily change his mind about the source of aesthetic universality: Now I maintain that the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good; and only because we refer the beautiful to the morally good (we all do so naturally and require all others also to do so, as a duty) does our liking for it include a claim to everyone else’s assent. (Kant 1987, 228) But Kant does not unfold this idea to any great extent, and certainly does not, as Schenker later will, doggedly pursue all of the manifold ways in which aesthetic activity is ubiquitously subject, even or especially at a fine-​grained stylistic level, to moral imperatives. In a word, then, if you believe what Kant believes about the morally symbolic potentialities of the beautiful, then it makes sense to believe, with Schenker, that musical activity falls under the dominion of a system of duties. To the extent that music allows for an “acoustical perception of the moral law,” Schenkerian deontic musical moralism—​Schenker’s tireless administering of the moral “ought” (and “ought not”) to a whole array of musical activities and qualities—​is, at least in principle, if not as practiced, both comprehensible and defensible. And it is so even in the absence of a credible constitutivist story. We return now to (2), from a few paragraphs ago, which said, more or less, that if music is conducive to morality because symbolic of it, and if it is symbolic of morality because of synthesis (both institutive and recognitive, since successful moral symbolism requires that the symbolic object be a certain way in order that it be able to be taken in a certain way), then musical synthesis is a duty. This, too, goes way beyond Kant. Although Kant sees beauty as the basis of moral symbolism, he does not see synthesis, in any of Schenker’s senses, as the basis of beauty—​for he does not see anything as the (necessary and sufficient) basis of beauty. Synthesis, as Schenker understands it, is a kind of rule for making and taking music, but Kant thinks there is no rule, and no denumerable set of requisite “marks,” for beauty. Since Schenkerian synthesis is, in that way, orthogonal to Kantian beauty, Kant need not think that beauty transmits whatever moral value it has to synthesis (as presumably he would think, if he thought synthesis was a prerequisite for beauty). This brings us back to the issue of Schenker’s criterial formalism, which openly breaks with Kant’s position that beauty is not “an objective property of an item, one attributable on the basis of a rule or concept” (Lopes 2021, 5 n. 12). Although a full treatment of this topic lies beyond the scope of this essay, we can note that even some of Kant’s most erudite and sympathetic commentators are dubious about whether Kant ought to have held such a view, given his other views (see e.g., Cohen 2002; Ameriks 1982). One way of coming to share this dubiousness is to notice that, if there is such a thing as the set of (all and only) those actual and possible objects that ought to be judged to be beautiful—​and why shouldn’t there be such a set?—​then one would expect there to also be stateable

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  309 criteria for membership in this class of objects. We could say, truly but vacuously, that the condition for class membership is that the object be such as to appropriately elicit judgments of beauty. But it does not seem that this could be all there is to say; it does not seem as though this condition could be basic and irreducible. It seems, instead, that, unless beauty is allowed to be mysterious or random or radically ungeneralizable—​basically, magical—​in a way that the scientifically minded Kant would not otherwise be disposed to countenance, there must be some specifiable, sharable features in virtue of which beautiful objects are beautiful. Put a different way, if it is the case that something is beautiful, it seems that there must be a reason for this that is suitably generalizable and noncircular. (One might of course have Wittgensteinian skepticism about whether concepts in general are rule-​like, but this too would undermine the distinction between ordinary “verifiable” empirical concepts and beauty.) Recall now Zuckert’s claim that in a Klimt painting, “each property serves as ‘means’ to the representation of the particular character of the others, and each is specified, represented in its particular character, likewise, by means of the others.” This relationship among properties—​call it “reciprocal means-​ ends determination,” or RMED—​must be understood, one assumes, as an attribute that a painting can nontrivially possess. Otherwise everything would be appropriately judged as beautiful, since it is the case of every object whatsoever that all of its properties are in some trivial sense “conditioned by” (simply by standing in any relation at all to) all of its other properties. This is also to say that RMED, for it to do the work Zuckert asks it to do in elucidating beauty, must be an attribute that a painting could provably lack. And in either case, whether something has or lacks RMED, there must be a reason for the having or the lacking, which, in order for it to be intelligible as a reason at all, must also be invocable as a reason in other comparable instances of having or lacking. But at this point it is becoming quite difficult to understand what RMED is, if not a concept or rule of some sort, a generic how-​it-​must-​be or what-​it-​must-​do that applies (or fails to apply) to many different things and that would be subject to appropriate procedures of verification. RMED might be multiply and diversely realizable in many different mediums or settings, but this does not tell against its status as a rule or concept. (The concept of a house is open-​ended, in the sense that there is quite literally no limit to the different configurations of bricks and beams and shingles—​or other materials entirely—​that could instantiate the concept.) So it is not at all perverse, or obviously a category error, to wonder: how might we methodically test for the presence, in music, of the property that corresponds to RMED?54 This is precisely the question to which Schenker gives a famous and divisive answer: something exhibits “tonal RMED,” that is, objectively instituted synthesis, Schenker maintains, if and only if it is graphable in accordance with the Schenkerian music-​analytical “algorithm.” We might not like Schenker’s answer. We might think he only manages to give a sufficient condition for musical beauty (since there may be many other ways for music to be “synthetic” besides the Beethovenian-​Chopinian-​Brahmsian way that he idolizes). Or we

310  Bryan Parkhurst might think that he only manages to give a necessary condition for musical beauty (since “Three Blind Mice” is graphable but not beautiful). Or we might think that he manages to give neither, and that the conditions lie elsewhere. Or we might think that there are no such conditions, perhaps because we are in the grip of Wittgensteinian scruples (about Familienahnlichkeit and the resulting “indefinability” of many ordinary terms, such as “game”), or perhaps because we think that Kant can somehow have his cake and eat it too, that is, can somehow coherently hold that beauty is in some attenuated sense explicable but in no sense generic. But we cannot fault Schenker for seeking a criterion it makes absolutely no sense, within a broadly Kantian paradigm, to seek. Schenker’s aesthetic moralism and criterial formalism appeared un-​or anti-​Kantian, at an early-​middleground interpretive level, because these are tenets that Kant either fails to fully take on board (aesthetic moralism) or rejects outright (criterial formalism). But at a background interpretive level, we see Schenker staking out positions that, at least conceivably, Kant might have staked out himself. Schenker’s “disagreements” with Kant may be better interpreted as continuations of the Kantian legacy, even attempts to out-​Kant Kant. This is true of many post-​Kantian thinkers, notably Fichte and Hegel. For an ambitious thinker, standing on the shoulders of a giant inevitably leads to stepping on the giant’s head—​and Schenker is nothing if not ambitious. 8.11 Conclusion One moral of this meandering story is that, if we take the norm of interpretive charity seriously, and if we try in earnest to do justice to the totality of Schenker’s thought, we will, to both of those extents, not allow ourselves to treat Schenker’s moralism as just an extraneous add-​on to his analytical method. Nor will we treat his moralism as merely an ill-​mannered and needlessly imperious rhetorical superfluity that can be suppressed in an attempt to rescue Schenker from his own peevishness. We cannot surgically remove the beating heart of moralism from Schenker’s Schenkerism without killing the patient we are trying to cure. For moral concerns are integral to—​in that they are the ultimate justificatory basis of, and in that they are prior in the order of explanatory precedence to—​Schenker’s analytical approach. (There may of course be styles of music analysis superficially similar to Schenker’s that are not in the same way or to the same degree morally verdictive, and that are thus remote from the temper and telos of Schenker’s work.) Also, if we take philosophical moral theory seriously enough to give a fair hearing to Kant’s version of it, we should not perfunctorily dismiss Schenker’s musical moralism. For there are formidable Kantian (and post-​or neo-​Kantian) arguments that can be mustered in support of Schenkerian musical moralism, as I have tried to show. We will have to argue with Schenker’s moralism if we feel moved to reject it. But this is the opposite of condescendingly and offhandedly discarding it. This conclusion is of particular interest in light of a recent sea change in music theorists’ attitudes toward Schenker. Lately there has arisen a

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  311 quasi-​religious, I dare say puritanical, zeal to condemn Schenker as the great ethical bugbear, indeed as an almost Luciferian figure, in the history of music theory, owing to his woefully benighted, self-​evidently odious views about race and gender. (His politically reactionary views about, for example, democracy and socialism have not kindled nearly as much of a conflagration—​none at all, in fact.) Such condemnation is, to be sure, richly deserved. I would be the last to demur at anyone’s insistence that we haul Schenker before the tribunal of contemporary moral instincts and find him guilty of breaching countless principles of enlightened multicultural liberalism. More than this, I would like to see Schenker receive the kind of painstaking diagnosis of his moral and political pathologies and enormities of intolerance that other ethically suspect intellectual figures such as Heidegger have received. It is interesting to consider how belatedly music theory’s self-​recriminations about its central figure’s racial antipathies and prejudices about gender and sexuality55 have arrived on the scene. The sort of disciplinary soul-​searching going on right now in music theory has been going on elsewhere in the humanities, without interruption, for at least the last half-​century. Philosophy, for example, has been obliged to publicly come to terms with Kant’s repugnant musings about race, gender, and sexuality. Kant for a time openly approved of chattel slavery (though by the end of his life he was a vociferous opponent of both colonialist militarism and the slave trade), he never abandoned his obnoxious paternalism toward women, and his views about “unnatural sex” are as bad as you’d expect. And all of this has been extensively documented and picked over. To give you a sense of proportion, the number of journal articles about Kant’s racism and sexism is comparable to the number of historical/​ philosophical publications about any aspect of Schenker’s work—​­somewhere in the low-​to-​mid 100s, in both cases. (This of course partly reflects the different sizes of the disciplines of philosophy and music theory.) The intellectual and ethical stakes of reckoning with Kant’s regrettable bigotries are high, for obvious reasons: Kant is arguably the most influential “philosopher of freedom” in the Western tradition, and is rightly regarded as one of the heroes on the philosophical front of humankind’s centuries-​long battle for universal human rights as a political and moral ideal as well as a concrete social reality (an ongoing struggle, for the Enlightenment is an unfinished project). And yet Kant sullied his own moral character, and seems to undermine his own credibility as a moral philosopher, by condoning some reprehensible forms of unfreedom. What should we make of this? Can the ethical theory transcend the personal ethics of the ethicist, or is the sinner’s theory inevitably “infected” by the sinner’s sin? I will let philosophers speak for themselves about Kant. (The usual quasi-​exculpatory thing to say, though there are those who contest it, is that Kant’s racism and sexism are clearly and directly disallowed by Kant’s path-​ breakingly progressive ethical principles.) My own take on Schenker is that the “infection thesis”—​according to which Schenker’s theories are indelibly contaminated by his racism—​should be treated as an interpretive conjecture

312  Bryan Parkhurst rather than as a an unquestioned and unquestionable dogma. We will have to let the best interpretive arguments prevail in (what I dislike calling) “the marketplace of ideas.” It may well be that, as Phillip Ewell (2020) has recently written, there is “racism within the theory” (2020)—​where that has to mean, if its polemical edge is to have the incisiveness it is meant to have, something more than that there are racist statements within the Schenkerian corpus. But I fear that we do not have, as yet, anything like a firm or widely shared sense of what “the theory” refers to.56 And so I am correspondingly uncertain of how best to think about what is “within the theory,” either as an explicit positive tenet or as an implicit, inextricable ideological nucleus. Probably the way that the term “Schenkerian theory” is most commonly used—not a usage I myself embrace—​is to refer to what it is necessary to know in order to make a standard-​issue linear reduction of a common-​practice tonal work. But “necessary” is a strong word. One certainly doesn’t need anything from the horse’s mouth—​you don’t need to first pore over Free Composition, let alone Tonwille, for months or years—​to sketch a passable voice-​leading graph of a parallel period. Indeed texts of any sort, primary or secondary, probably aren’t necessary for acquiring this skill; it is likely more expeditious for someone to just show you how to do it. For what it is worth, I have a hunch (a theory?) that the unhelpful locution “Schenkerian theory” is causing some mischief hereabouts. Over in philosophy, nobody says “Kantian theory” and leaves it at that. They would talk about the “Kantian theory of international law” or the “Kantian-​ Laplace nebular hypothesis” or “Kant’s transcendental idealism and empirical realism,” and they certainly wouldn’t take it for granted that those ideas belong to the same “theory” just because they all came from the same mind. The point being: Schenker had lots of thoughts, and he committed a truly extraordinary number of them to paper, and it is no mean feat figuring out which ones systematically depend on which other ones so as to hang together “theoretically”. These matters are complicated—​the embarrassing length of this essay is a testament to their complexity—​and Schenker does us no favors with his esotericism and his sometimes execrably cryptic prose. For all of these reasons, I am wary of the uncritical and credulous monistic holism implied by appeals to “Schenker’s insistence that his ideas were all representative of a unified worldview” (Ewell 2020). The silly claim that “Schenker’s worldview has nothing to do with his music theory” (Ewell 2020, quoting Martin Ebyl, who agrees with Ewell, and with me, that it is silly—​“nothing” is an even stronger word that “necessary”!) should not be exchanged for the opposite exaggeration, namely, the claim that everything about Schenker’s worldview has everything to do with everything in “his music theory.” Consider that Karl Marx had what we could justly call a “romantic” worldview—​communism, he thought, would make it “possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner”—​and also a theory of capitalist development according to which growth in the “organic composition of capital” mathematically guarantees a secular decline in the economy’s average rate of profit.

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  313 But Marx did not have a romantic theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. (What would that even mean?) Theories and worldviews, assuming we know how to tell them apart, can sometimes be insulated from, or just irrelevant to, each other, and sometimes not; the devil is in the details. I would not wish to be misunderstood as saying this so as to foreclose further pursuit of the hypothesis that there is “racism within the theory”—​where, again, that statement is understood to be making a claim that goes beyond the demonstrably true claim, one widely acknowledged for many decades by all reputable commentators, that Schenker was some kind of loathsome bigot. That is not up for relitigation. I say it, rather, to encourage pursuit of the hypothesis as a hypothesis, which means thinking long and hard about what it would take to prove the hypothesis or elevate its credibility, and about what practical implications the demonstration or further evidentiary support of it would have for future research and pedagogy in music theory. Compared to philosophy, music theory has allowed itself hardly any time for these labors of thought. We have 50 years of catching up to do. My final remark, which I offer less as a defense of Schenker and more as a defense of continuing to read Schenker—​it is a sign of the times that this is something that needs sticking up for—​is this: One cannot (A) open the door wide enough to allow in the convictions that (1) music is morally important, and that (2) morally and musically serious people should view how music is made (in a broad sense that includes the stylistic sense), and also how music is construed and talked about, as matters of potential moral concern, and also (B) shut the door quickly enough to keep Schenker’s potent ideas out. It was Schenker, after all, who was chiefly responsible for turning the musicological conversation toward critique, that is, toward cultural or humanistic inquiry oriented by “a vision of the good social order grounded in both a detailed, empirical understanding of how existing institutions function and a commitment to normative criteria that are (in the broadest sense) ethical” (Neuhouser 2011, 281). Adorno is more celebrated now for his “critical-​theoretical” approach to music and music analysis, and Adorno’s Marxian dourness toward capitalist modernity is more agreeable to many of us than is Schenker’s reactionary dourness toward capitalist modernity, what with his constant authoritarian and revanchist eruptions—​though it is both noteworthy and depressing that Adorno’s revolutionary Marxism usually gets toned down beyond recognition when he is appropriated for academic musicological purposes. But it should be borne in mind that Adorno was himself a discerning reader of Schenker, and saw himself as able and allowed to learn from Schenker, in spite of possessing a worldview that differed from Schenker’s toto caelo—​saw himself as able and allowed, that is, to not throw out the music-​theoretical baby with the political and ideological bathwater.57 I cannot help but think, therefore, that if we wish to engage in ethical and political critique of Schenker’s thought, or of Schenkerian and neo-​Schenkerian thought generally—​and I would be gratified to see this critical endeavor undertaken energetically, and with the philosophical nuance and scholarly punctiliousness that I praised Korsyn for at the

314  Bryan Parkhurst beginning of this overlong essay—​we music theorists must do so, ineludibly and honestly, as children of Schenker. Notes 1 I am deeply grateful to Jeffrey Swinkin for the encouragement and detailed criticism he provided as I wrote this essay. 2 I ran across this quotation from the Umschlagblatt of Das Wesen des Musikalischen Kunstwerks in Willi Reich’s (1934, 29) review of the book. But I have not managed to locate the actual source of the quote. It does not appear in the front matter of the 1934 Saturn-​Verlag edition of the work. It is possible that the epigraph is printed only on the original book jacket, which I have been unable to track down. 3 See Giovanelli (2011) for an overview of the early-​twentieth-​century post-​Kantian interpretive dispute between “the idea of ‘Kant als Erkenntnistheoretiker’ ” and “the image of ‘Kant als Metaphysiker’ ” (222). It is common in the secondary literature to characterize Schenker as having made “frequent excursions into metaphysics” (Cook 1989, 415; see also, e.g., Arndt 2019; Cook 1991; Cumming 1994; Whittle 1994; Forte 1959; Almén 1996, Dubiel 1990; Cherlin 1986). But the sense in which Schenker’s thinking is supposed to be “metaphysical” is rarely specified. It should be borne in mind that Schenker himself would strenuously resist being characterized as a metaphysician. His own references to metaphysics are usually less than flattering, for instance: “Only living love composes, makes possible linear progressions and coherence—​not metaphysics, so often invoked in the present time, or the much touted ‘objectivity’; these, in particular, have neither creativity nor breeding warmth” (Schenker 2001c, 160). Or: “A wonder [i.e. the miraculous rapport of the fundamental structure with the foreground] remains a wonder and can be experienced only by those blessed with special perception. Its secrets are inaccessible to every sort of metaphysics” (ibid., 27). Or: “Creation may have its origin anywhere, in any suitable voice-​leading level or tone-​succession; the seed, by the grace of God, remains inaccessible even to metaphysics” (ibid., 18). Schenker’s affinities with Kant are sometimes offered as evidence of Schenker’s metaphysical bent (see e.g., Arndt 2017), and vice versa. However, Kant himself was in one important sense deeply anti-​metaphysical, in that a great deal of Kant’s first Critique is given over to castigating the pretensions of dogmatic rationalist metaphysicians, such as Christian Wolff (1679–​1754), who purported to deductively demonstrate the existence of supersensible entities such as God and the immortal soul. 4 Actually, Schenker himself introduces us to this Schenker when, in the fourth of his Tonwille pamphlets, he writes: Just as Kant established these limits for human thought as a whole, so, too, did the great masters of German composition establish the limits of specifically musical thought—​as the boundaries of musical composition, akin to the boundaries of human capability at the general level. (2004, 160) SKT documents this and many other appeals to and quotations of Kant that appear in Schenker’s canonical writings. I have not discovered any Kantiana in Schenker’s published works beyond what Korsyn turned up (though I have not scoured

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  315 Schenker’s early articles in periodicals). But I can provide information about one Kant quotation whose source Korsyn was unable to identify. In the third Tonwille pamphlet, Schenker quotes Kant as saying that The English nation (gens) regarded as a people (populus) and looked upon side by side with other races is, as a collection of individuals, of all mankind the most highly to be esteemed. But as a state, compared with other states, it is the most destructive, high-​handed and tyrannical, and the most provocative of war among them all. (2004, 135) This remark comes from Reicke’s edition of Kant’s posthumously compiled notes, Lose Blätter aus Kants Nachlass, Vol. 1 (1889, 129). Schenker’s inclusion of this quotation in Tonwille 3 shows that his knowledge of Kant’s writings extended well beyond Kant’s prominent critical-​period works. (The fact that this quotation does not appear in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant is a measure of its obscurity.) In 1988, Korsyn did not have full access to the entirety of Schenker’s correspondence and diaries, which contain dozens of further references to Kant. In his correspondence and Tagebücher, Schenker records purchases of books by Kant, describes leisurely hours spent studying Kant on his balcony and occasions when he read Kant while listening to Beethoven, relates his opinions about the secondary scholarly literature on Kant, mentions instances when he noticed his wife perusing Kant’s works, recounts comparisons between Schenker and Kant made by others, and even shares the details of dreams he had about Kant! This interesting material deserves its own separate treatment, so I will here only mention what I was most pleased to discover: that Schenker implicitly imputes to himself a Kantian role that I imputed to him in Parkhurst 2017 (59, n. 1). “Kant’s project in his first Critique,” I wrote, involves an ongoing polemic against the dogmatic knowledge claims of speculative/​ rationalist metaphysicians [foremost among whom was Wolff]. In like manner, Schenker’s late works investigate the epistemic criteria for the representation of musical content (the transcendental conditions of musical listening, as it were) and polemicize against traditional speculative and dogmatic music theory. Lo and behold, in a letter from 1911 Schenker writes: I will conduct my refutation in entirely objective terms. The material is already fully adequate for that, now that I have sat for three weeks poring over [Hugo] Riemann. The situation demands my refutation; I find an affirmation of my rightful instincts, moreover, in all that I have chanced to re-​read while here [...] including Kant against Wolff [...] The fight against one’s adversaries is ineluctable. In any case, I will do it better, because strictly objectively. You will see it, by the way, because I will show you my critiques. (Schenker 1911, emphasis mine) 5 The Neue Marx-​Lektüre (“New Reading of Marx”) was an influential rereading of Marx’s value theory that crested at around the same time that philosophical reconsiderations of Schenker began to gain momentum. See Bellofiore and Riva (2015) for an overview.

316  Bryan Parkhurst 6 See Parkhurst (2017, 59, n. 1) for an explanation of how Schenker’s works are “critical” in Kant’s special sense of that word. 7 Some fairly sinuous considerations led Kant to the view that teleological judgments of living things have an “as-​if ” status and cannot be definitively known to be true. But he maintained that these judgments are indispensably useful and thus pragmatically justified. Though they do not make claims about how nature “really is,” Kant thinks, teleological judgments are the results of our implementation of heuristic principles of empirical investigation that we “really must” follow in studying nature. End-​oriented cognition is the only judgmental expedient available to us as “discursive” (concept-​using and sensation-​having) knowers who can only explain nature in terms of the category of causation, but who encounter what Kant alleges is a paradox: self-​causing and self-​maintaining organic unities. Such (apprehended but nevertheless “unknown”) “causally circular” organic unity (wherein the effect is the cause of itself and the cause is the effect of itself) can subsist at the level of individuals—​plants and animals—​or systems of individuals, up to and including the world-​whole (totum realitatis), that is, the purposively arranged cosmic totality that plants and animals both metabolically inhabit and, as “organic moments” (in a double sense), partly constitute. Schenker does not share Kant’s epistemically modest view that teleology, while not strictly matter-​of-​factual, is nevertheless scientifically and practically “ungiveupable.” Instead teleological judgment of music, according to Schenker, yields genuine knowledge of “objective content” (Schenker 1992, 182) and a “representation of truth” (ibid., 15). 8 Note, however, that Kant’s theory of teleological judgment is itself an epistemological theory (of how and to what extent we can gain knowledge of living things). It might be more accurate to say that Korsyn’s Schenker theorizes pure musical epistemology whereas Parkhurst’s Schenker theorizes applied musical epistemology, or what I call “methodological organicism” (Parkhurst 2017, 73). 9 “Strange as it may sound, Schenker never described his work as a theory of tonality, nor did he ever attempt any kind of categorical distinction between ‘tonal’ and ‘non-​tonal’ musics (whether ‘pre-​tonal,’ ‘post-​tonal’ or ‘atonal’)” (Koslovsky 2014, 151). The number of different meanings of “theory” and of “tonality,” and the sheer amount and variety of things Schenker says about tonal music, make it difficult to be flatly erroneous in saying that Schenker has a “theory of tonality,” even if saying so is infelicitous, as Koslovsky thinks it is. But Brown et al. (1997) come as close as anyone can to flat erroneousness when they say that Schenker has (or wants or purports to have) an “empirical theory of tonality” that is able to “derive all and only tonal compositions” (157). See DeBellis (2010) for a critique of Brown et al.’s application of a logical positivist framework to Schenker’s writings. 10 I hesitate to speak casually of “Schenker’s theory” tout court, since it suggests that Schenker’s kaleidoscopically diverse thoughts about music could all be incorporated into (or were intended to be understood as constituting) a single, unified theoretical “model.” Schenker was in many respects a highly unsystematic thinker, an issue I return to at the end of this essay. See Parkhurst (2014, 124 ff.) for reflections on the errors that arise from regarding “Schenker’s theory” as a monolith. 11 In drawing this distinction between two senses of “ethical,” I am reminded of the conclusion of Mary Geach’s introduction to a posthumously published volume of essays by her mother, the redoutable Catholic analytic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe:

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  317 The difference between a philosopher, as we in the West understand that word, and a sage who is giving of his wisdom, is in this: that the way to show respect for a sage is to accept his teaching, but the way to respect the philosopher is to argue. (Anscombe 2006, xii) My aim in this essay could be characterized as that of finding the mein of an ethical philosopher beneath the mask of the sage that Schenker finds it so agreeable to wear. 12 “Someone who has knowledge has a recognitional capacity for identification or an effective power to do or to make something. As one might say, he or she has an ability to achieve or attain something factive, active or practive” (Haldane 2020, 47). 13 The contemporary use of “deontology” as a classificatory term dates back to Broad’s Five Types of Ethical Theory (1930). Trying to force Kant’s weird, sprawling, and massively complicated ethical theory into the procrustean bed of textbook “deontology” is futile. For arguments that Kant’s ethics accord great importance, in consequentialist (Kantsequentialist?) rather than deontological fashion, to the “maximization of the good,” see Cummiskey (1996). 14 Cf. Kant’s famous “murderer at the door” thought experiment, presented in his essay “On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives” (Kant 1898). There, Kant argues, notoriously, that the absolute duty not to lie forbids one to deceive a murderer so as to save the life of an innocent. 15 Here and elsewhere I give the citation only for the standard published English translation of Schenker’s works, but I have consulted the original German and modified the translation as necessary whenever Schenker’s exact wording, and not just his general meaning, is in any way important for my argument. Because this is a work of Schenker scholarship and not a work of Kant scholarship, I have cited whichever edition of Kant’s work I happened to have near to hand, and I forego providing either volume and page numbers for the Akademie edition of Kant’s complete works or (as is standard practice in the Kant literature) page numbers in the original first (A) and second (B) editions of the Critique of Pure Reason. 16  Schenker’s description of music as “self-​generating, developing from its own laws [aus sich selbst enstandenen, in eigenen Gesetzen absolute sich auswirkenden],” or “a self-​contained unity [eine Einheit]” suggests an affinity with Kant’s self-​ legislating reason. When Schenker uses a coinage like “Tonvernunft,”—​literally tone-​reason—​his equation of music’s autonomy with that of reason becomes explicit. (Korsyn 1988, 14) 17 Lying is Kant’s go-​to example of an action whose self-​underminingness is revealed to us when we simulate its universalization. If I lie to get what I want, “I cause that declarations should in general find no credence” (Kant 1898, 362), since if everyone lied whenever it seemed convenient, this would bring about universal mistrust. Lying would cease to be a way of getting what I want, since all “rights based on contracts should be void and lose their force” (ibid.). Thus the maxim I will tell such-​and-​such a lie to get such-​and-​such thing that I want has a non-​universalizable form. The content of the maxim would be my particular falsehood and its particular desired outcome, but non-​universalizability does not depend, Kant thinks, on particularities of content, that is, on the lie I tell and the thing I want. 18 This reference to the CI occurs within a discussion of “duties stemming from traditional custom, morals, and religion (Pflichten der Sitte, Moral, Religion), or [...] with

318  Bryan Parkhurst respect to art and science (Kunst u. Wissenschaft),” so musical duties are implicitly included in the scope of Schenker’s statement. 19 This passage may also be an allusion to Hegel’s youthful antipathy toward Christianity. The criticism Schenker makes of Jesus—​ that Jesus’ teachings are abstract and disconnected from concrete experience—​is similar, to a degree that inclines one to suspect that the similarity is nonaccidental, to that found in Hegel’s early essay “The Positivity of the Christian Religion.” 20 Whether the different formulations can really be thought of as different expressions of exactly the same principle is another long-​standing interpretive debate that we can thankfully bypass. 21 The idea that there is a moral imperative to consummately refine the capabilities of the senses so as to enable the “perception of perfection” (Guyer 2007), in both moral and aesthetic deliberation, is characteristic not of Kant but of Baumgarten (1714–​62), whose sentimentalist ethics Kant criticized. Inverting Baumgarten’s formulation, Goethe later held that we are required to seek the “perfection of perception” (ibid.), which is necessary for “science” in the Goethean sense of “a delicate empiricism that makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory” (Goethe 1995, 307). I can here only mention, but cannot explore, the possibility that much in Schenker’s ouvre represents a filtration of Kant’s ethics through the prism of Goethe’s unconventional empiricism. This may be the likeliest genealogical explanation of why Schenker’s Musikwissenschaft takes the form of an ethically inflected Kantian biologism (as I argue in Parkhurst 2017); for that is in some respects exactly what Goethe’s botany is. See Pastille (1985) and Don (1991) for commentaries on the connections between Goethe and Schenker. 22 Such a wish is perhaps not really even intelligible, since the wish itself, to be a coherent thought, must already involve the application of the pure categories of the understanding. 23  We must I here take sensus communis to mean the idea of a sense shared I by all of us [eines gemeinschaftlichen Sinnes], i.e., a power to judge that in reflecting takes account (a priori), in our thought, of everyone else’s way of presenting [something], in order as it were to compare our own judgment with human reason in general and thus escape the illusion that arises from the ease of mistaking subjective and private conditions for objective ones, an illusion that would have a prejudicial influence on the judgment. (Kant 1987, 160) 24  A maxim is the subjective principle of volition; the objective principle (i.e., that which would also serve subjectively as the practical principle for all rational beings if reason had complete control over the faculty of desire) is the practical law. (Kant 1997, 14) 25 Kant goes on: I therefore apply the maxim to the present case and ask whether it could indeed take the form of a law and I could thus indeed, at the same time, give through my maxim such a law as this: that everyone may deny a deposit which no one can prove to him to have been made. I immediately become aware that such a

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  319 principle, as a law, would annihilate itself, because it would bring it about that there would be no deposit[s]‌at all. (Kant 2002, 40–​41) 26 Cf. Schenker (2014b), where Schenker confirms the fundamental synonymy of “synthesis” and “coherence”: “The linear progression is the sole vehicle of coherence, of synthesis [alleinige Träger des Zusammenhanges, der Synthese]” (1); “Therefore, it is only by means of the linear progression—​by means of the passing note—​that it is possible to achieve coherence, to achieve synthesis of the whole [geht es zum Zusammenhang, zur Synthese des Ganzen]” (9). 27 It is not incorrect to interpret “synthesis,” as it is conventional and commonsensical to do, as coreferential with that notorious Schenkerian watchword, organic coherence. Schott (Schenker 2000, 20), for instance, unobjectionably states that “ ‘synthesis is Schenker’s term for his concept of organic unity, i.e., the idea of a work of art in which every part is organically related, supported by a single unifying background structure.” Indeed, Schenker himself says as much: “The following are really synonymous: ‘wholeness,’ ‘synthesis,’ ‘organic unity,’ and ‘figure’ ” (2014b, 18). But as I shall argue, the organic coherence of a musical work is best understood as the result of musical actions that properly accord end-​status to tones. Thus the institution and acknowledgment of end-​statuses is explanatorily prior to the resulting organic coherence. “Synthesis” refers to organic coherence the way “Kingdom of Ends” (Kant 1997, 41) as used by Kant, refers to an organically unified, rationally ordered, ideal moral community: in each case there is a state of perfected interconnectedness that represents what ideally results from ideally moral action in morally ideal circumstances. Perhaps it is not insignificant, in connection with the Kantian Kingdom of Ends, that Schenker uses the phrase “kingdom of miraculous synthesis [Reich der Synthesen-​Wunder]” (Schenker 2005, 139) to refer to a state of organic unity. Also, Kant suggests that pure reason itself, the source of the moral law, has a quality of organic unity: Pure speculative reason [...] as regards its cognitive principles, it is an entirely separate, self-​subsistent unity in which, as in an organized body, each member exists for the sake of all the others, and all exist for the sake of each one. In this unity no principle can safely be taken in one reference unless we have also investigated it in [its] thoroughgoing reference to our entire pure use of reason. (Kant 1996, 26) Concerning this comparison, Pauline Kleingeld (1998b, 96) writes: The analogy between organisms and reason, applied to the problem of the conative characterization of reason, would imply that the relation between reason, on the one hand, and regulative principles and postulates, on the other, should be regarded as analogous to the relation between organisms and that which fulfills their needs. Symbolizing reason in this way would not imply any observable similarity between organisms and reason. Rather, it involves an analogy: An organism (A) is to the object of its needs (B) as reason (C) is to the regulative ideas or postulates (D). We will return to the idea of symbolism—​another technical Kantian concept that helps us to reconstruct and assess Schenker’s ethical theory—​at the end of this essay.

320  Bryan Parkhurst 28 Synthesis, from syn =​ with or together +​ tithenai =​ to put, to place, is the direct Greek analogue of compose, from com =​ with or together +​ ponere =​ to put, to place. 29 Schenker is referring specifically to Beethoven in this quote, but it surely applies to musicians in general. 30 In Tonwille 6, Schenker neatly summarizes the connections between synthesis, morality, rights, and freedom, but adds the Schopenhauerian-​Nietzschean, and wholly un-​Kantian, proviso that only geniuses are implicated in any of this: Being involved in right and duty, as also in freedom and morality, is solely the prerogative of geniuses who gain access to such superior phenomena and such extremely difficult concepts of humanity-​synthesis by means of the experiences forged in the synthesis of their own creations. (2005, 31) 31 In the cited passage, Schenker is talking primarily about the concept of modal mixture, not the concept of synthesis, but the basic point still holds. 32 In SKT, Korsyn (1988, 23 ff.), in a discussion of how the philosophical problematic of “personal identity” pertains to music, associates Schenkerian synthesis mainly with the first Critique’s theory of judgmental synthesis, that is, Kant’s account of the function that categories and concepts have in unifying the “manifold of intuition.” Synthesis in this sense is the process by which the deliverances of sense are brought together and unified under concepts and categories, whether those latter are empirical (“dachshund”) or transcendental (“cause,” “effect”). This relates to the “synthetic unity of apperception,” which Korsyn also connects with Schenkerian synthesis. The synthetic unity of apperception is, roughly, the subject’s diachronic (in-​and-​through-​time) process of seeking synchronic (at-​a-​time) rational coherence, that is, subject-​internal logical and material consistency of representations. The process of achieving coherence is governed by relations of implication. For instance, that the dachshund is short-​haired implies that the dachshund is not wire-​haired, so if I acquire the belief that the dachshund is short-​haired, I am under rational pressure to jettison the belief (if I antecedently have it) that dachshund is wire-​ haired. These implication relations impose unity within the set of judgments made by an individual judging subject, who corresponds to the “I” in Kant’s assertion that “the ‘I think’ must be capable of accompanying all my representations” (1996, 177). Schenker’s use of “synthesis” is certainly picking up on this and other first-​Critique senses of the term in various ways, all of them credibly itemized by Korsyn. But there must be something else going on, too. That is because Schenker is absolutely clear that synthesis is a moral duty, and Kant is absolutely clear that the conceptual synthesis of the manifold of intuition and the synthetic unity of apperception, though normative (as conditions for the possibility of experience and norms of consistent judgment), are not to be thought of as moral duties. 33 Music theorists use metaphors such as “sonata argument” [e.g., Ivanovitch 2010, 148; Smith 2013, 91; Hepokoski 2009, 242] with such regularity that they may now be dead metaphors, and they may already have been dead when earlier thinkers such as Hanslick were using them. Be that as it may, the sense in which the sonata’s recapitulation “follows validly from” its exposition and development is nothing at all like the sense in which the conclusion of a deductive argument follows validly from its premises. Of course, assertions about purely musical content can certainly stand in inferential relations with one another. “This chord is a complete A major triad”

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  321 implies “this chord contains an A, a C#, and an E.” Note also that certain kinds of music are full of before-​and-​after regularities that can be statistically tabulated and that may allow one to make weighted predictions about what will happen next based on what has already happened. But none of this shows that music is “rational” or “logical” in some deep or special sense, as Schenker insists it is. So we will have to search elsewhere for a warrant for this way of talking. 34 See Kleingeld (1998a) on the issue of how theoretical and practical rationality are two sides of the same coin for Kant. 35 Gensler (1996, 1) explains “the distinction between ethical principles that are formal (like ‘Follow your conscience’) and ones that are material (like ‘Don’t steal’)” by noting that “formal ethical principles [are] expressible using only variables and constants [...] where the constants can include logical terms, terms for general psychological attitudes (like believe, desire, and act), and other fairly abstract notions (like ought and ends-​means)” (ibid., 5). On this account “follow your conscience” means “If you believe that you ought to do A, then do A”; and “treat others as you want to be treated” means “if you want X to do A to you, then do A to X” (ibid.). But “material ethical principles (like ‘Don’t steal’) can’t be analyzed this way, since they contain concrete terms (like ‘steal’)” (ibid.). Although I am skeptical about whether Gensler’s way of drawing the distinction is ultimately tenable, it does an okay job of getting across a rough-​and-​ready sense of what ethical formalism is about. 36 This synopsis draws liberally on Korsgaard (1986). 37 Here I am reminded of Schenker’s remark that “inherent in art is truth, that is, the fulfillment, at once personal [persönliche] and unconditioned [unbedingt], of the law by which art is bound” (Schenker 2014c, 70). Kant answers the question of how this fulfillment of the law could be both “personal” and “unconditioned”: rational personhood establishes itself as an unconditioned end. 38 I remain agnostic, for present purposes, about what limitations there are on what can count as an “individuated tonal entity.” Most basically, I have in mind things such as harmonies, melodies, motives, lines, etc. “Musical object” would also be a sufficiently generic term. For convenience, in the rest of my characterization of Schenker’s Second-​ Formulation-​ inspired view, I will often use “tone” to mean “everything that could reasonably be considered to be a musical individual,” which I take to include individual tones and various sorts of entities constructed out of them. 39 I take “laws of the soul,” or what Schenker elsewhere calls “general natural laws of the soul [allgemeinen Naturgesetzen der Seele]” (2004, 73) to be “natural” in the sense of universal and exceptionless. Cf. Kant (1997, 43): “The formula of the moral imperative is expressed thus: that maxims must be chosen as if they were to hold as universal laws of nature.” 40 This suggests a way of connecting Schenker’s analytical practice with the First Formulation of the CI, “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” The “maxim” one adopts vis-​a-​vis a tonal entity cannot be one that makes another tonal entity merely instrumental to it, or that makes it merely instrumental to another tonal entity, within a work. For such a maxim could not (as a matter of logical possibility) be consistently applied to all tonal entities (i.e., could not be universalized) within a work. It is impossible to treat every tone in a work as a mere means (at least one tone would have to be the end to which the others are means). And it is impossible to treat every

322  Bryan Parkhurst tone as served by, but not serving, other tones (at least one tone would have to be the servant). 41 The double meaning of “bindugsbeglückt” is untranslatable. Schenker wants to convey that those who produce synthesis are endowed with a capacity to be responsive to and fulfill tonal obligation (one meaning of “Bindung”), and also that synthesizers exercise this capacity by acknowledging or creating a certain sort of bond or attachment (another meaning of “Bindung”) between and among tonal entities. 42 It is not difficult to concoct a “variable-​constant formula” for Schenkerian analysis that is “formal” in the exact sense that the First Formulation of the CI is “formal,” for example, “For any note X, it is the case that every other note Y contributes to the fulfillment of X’s intrinsic purpose.” We could then say that graphic analysis is a formalistic demonstration of a work’s satisfaction of this formal criterion. 43 I set aside here the question of whether an objective organizational structure could be accidentally synthetic, that is, a product of a musical intention that was not itself synthetic (characterized by respect for tonal end-​status). 44 There may be several layers of nesting and criss-​crossing interrelationships here. At least three nuances are worth listing. (1) Both recognitive and institutive synthesis, if understood as (or as requiring) knowledge, may belong to synthesis-​as-​thought vs. synthesis-​as-​thing. (2) Institutive synthesis may require recognitive synthesis (in something like the way making a good soufflé requires knowing what a good soufflé is). And (3) institutive synthesis may be described as the ability to use synthesis-​as-​ thought to bring about synthesis-​as-​thing. The basic point is unaffected by these subtleties: synthesis applies to society and art, theory and practice, and thoughts and things. 45 Recent efforts to sanitize or bowdlerize Schenker’s theory by reconstructing Schenkerian analysis as “purely descriptive” (of how tonal works are thus-​and-​ so) and essentially phenomenological, or instead as “purely explanatory” (of why tonal works are or must be as they are) and essentially deductive-​nomological—​ and in either case as essentially nonevaluative—​allow the tail to wag the dog. They see Schenker’s normative judgments as separable addenda to his basic descriptive or explanatory program. But, in fact, the musical descriptions and explanations Schenker gives are ancillaries of, and are fully intelligible only as accessories to, his more basic mission of rationally apprehending the dignity and autonomy of tones. “The rationale behind Schenker’s value judgments” (Pastille 1995)—​tonal end-​status, according to me (and according to Schenker, according to me)—​is thus strictly prior to Schenker’s descriptions and explanations, in the sense that what his descriptions and explanations are descriptions and explanations of is how precisely tones can be construed as ends-​in-​themselves, and thus construed as value-​ manifesting. The problem with trying to suppress the evaluative dimension of Schenker is that it is very hard to see what the point of doing Schenkerian analysis could possibly be other than the evaluative point Schenker believes it has. Uprooted from the evaluative soil in which it germinates, and from which it derives its sustenance, Schenkerian analysis must of needs become a desiccated husk of a practice, a hollow ritual, an elaborate but empty liturgy that lacks a deity to pay homage to. 46 Schenker’s deontological conception of love as what is owed to music of a certain stature might be intriguingly compared to treatments of love of music by Guck (1996) and Luong (2017) that see love as some sort of replacement of, or admirably liberal and tolerant alternative to, “musical morality” (Luong 2017). For Kant and

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  323 Schenker, the idea of love as a value that could be elevated above or placed in the stead of morality would have seemed nonsensical. 47 Schenker uses “Schönheit” and related words comparatively infrequently. Unlike Kant, he does not offer a philosophical theory of beauty and does not use “beautiful” as a term of art. He uses it almost exclusively in an everyday way, to praise lovely musical passages. Perhaps Schenker felt that Hanslick had already said all there was to say about “the beautiful in music.” Still, it is pretty obvious that Schenker thinks beauty is a product of synthesis. He says that the “great masters” are “the inventors of beautiful ideas and beautiful synthesis” (1992, 210) and that one must “learn what goodness, truth and beauty are based on,” namely, synthesis (1994, 30). I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this issue. 48 Schenker at times suggests that synthesis is necessary, but is not sufficient, for masterworkmanship: It is immediately understandable that works that display ingenious and original traits of synthesis [geistvoller und origineller Synthese] pose infinitely greater difficulties for both analytical comprehension [Enträtselung] and performance than works with simpler or faulty organization [einfacherer oder verfehlter Organisation]. That is also the reason genuine masterworks [echte Meisterwerke], which indeed belong to the first category, are as a rule read incorrectly with respect to their meaning and performed in a distorted way. (Schenker 1992, 11) The synthetic organization of a “genuine masterwork,” therefore, must be “ingenious and original” and not merely “simple.” Since “simple synthesis” is presumably graphable—​indeed, one supposes, more readily graphable—​than complex synthesis, graphability would have to be a precondition, but not a guarantee, of masterworkmanship. 49 “There is a rather inferior and, calling a spade a spade, unmusical kind of music criticism” that “does not render unto art what is due to art” and in which, therefore, “immorality prevails, a turpitude of musical life in general” (Schenker 1988, 134). 50 Actually Kant’s assertion may be even more “meta” than this: it is not the things that are similar, and not the judgments that are similar, but the rules of the judgments that are similar. I cannot myself see the motivation for this ascent. See Cohen (2002) for criticisms of Kant’s account of symbolism. 51 To this, as we have already seen, Kant will reply that it is the experience of beauty that allows artworks to function as moral symbols, and that the experience of beauty cannot be indexed to any particular rules of style. 52 Schenker generally prefers to directly compare tones to people, for example, the tonal system [...] should be recognized as a sort of higher collective order [als eine Art von höherer Gemeinschaft], as a sort of state based on its own social contracts [eine Art von Staatswesen mit eigenen Gesellschaftsverträgen] by which the individual tones are bound to abide. (Schenker 1954, 84) But he also, like Kant, adverts to similarities between types of judgment—​on the one hand, moral judgments of people (based on comparisons between what people do and what they could and ought to have done) and, on the other hand, contrapuntal

324  Bryan Parkhurst judgments of tones (based comparison between the composer’s actual contrapuntal decisions and other possible, superior solutions): Even in ordinary life, a situation is never simply accepted as it confronts us, but is also subjected to judgment [beurteilt], whereupon it is precisely the other possible resolutions of the same situation that serve as the basis of the judgment [Grundlage des Urteils]. For example: a frail old man enters the tram and cannot find a seat; young, healthy fellow passengers see this, but have no regard for it. Indeed, it is exactly this lack of regard that yields a certain result in this situation, but we judge [urteilen] the situation according to the standard provided by another possible solution and therefore decide against the behavior of the young fellow passengers. One can see that in the world of morality [Welt der Sittlichkeit] as well as in the world of tones [Welt der Töne] there is something like voice-​ leading in which the actually implemented solution is judged against better possible solutions. (2001b, 275 n. 7) 53 I overtranslate “Sport” as “gymnastic” to draw a comparison with Kant’s “ethical gymnastic” (2009, 227). 54 Zuckert also notes that, in cases of artistic RMED, “there seems to be the same reciprocity of relations among parts, and hence the same priority of whole to part, in (the experience of) beautiful objects as there is in organisms.” But if we take “same” in “the same reciprocity” seriously and literally, then it seems that organic and beautiful should either both be empirical concepts or both not be empirical concepts. And it seems like a very large bullet for Kant to bite to say that there are no “marks” that allow us to ascertain, through the discursive use of concepts, whether something is alive or not. Bioagnosticism is not an intuitively attractive view. But perhaps Kant does bite this bullet in arguing that natural teleology is a merely regulative concept (see Zuckert 2007, 106). 55 As far as I know, it has not yet been remarked upon in the secondary literature that in his essay “Rameau or Beethoven?” Schenker gets himself into a lather worrying that, if musicians side with Rameau rather than Beethoven, freedom will become “a release that gives rein to all base instincts” and love will become “a bisexual caper.” To this I can only say: where do I sign up for team Rameau? 56 In Parkhurst (2014, 126), I challenged the assumption that Schenker’s ‘final theory’ is something like the sum total of all the pronouncements that Schenker issued about music after some sufficiently advanced date (say, the publication of The Masterwork in Music): if you aren’t worried about what kind of theory Schenker’s theory is, you don’t need to worry about which of his statements are properly theoretical statements. But both of these seem like worries worth having. Certainly they are in the case of Newton, where we would like to acknowledge an important difference between ‘for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’ and ‘space is the sensorium Dei’ by saying that the former statement does, and the latter statement does not, belong to Newtonian physics properly so-​called. 57 See Wedler (2020) for an account of the Schenker-​Adorno connection.

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  325 Bibliography Almén, Byron. 1996. “Prophets of the Decline: The Worldviews of Heinrich Schenker and Oswald Spengler.” Indiana Theory Review 17, no. 1: 1–​24.Ameriks, Karl. 1982. “How to Save Kant’s Deduction of Taste.” Journal of Value Inquiry 16: 295–​302. Anscombe, G. E. M., 2005. Human Life, Action, and Ethics. Edited by Mary Geach and Luke Gormally. Charlottesville: Imprint Academic. Arndt, Matthew, 2013. “Schenker and Schoenberg on the Eye of the Genius.” Theoria: Historical Aspects of Music Theory 20: 39–​120. —​—​—​. 2019. The Musical Thought and Spiritual Lives of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg. New York: Routledge. Bellofiore, Riccardo and Tommaso Redolfi Riva. 2015. “The Neue Marx-​ Lektüre: Putting the Critique of Political Economy Back into the Critique of Society.” Radical Philosophy 189: 24–​ 36. www.radica​lphi​loso​phy.com/​arti​cle/​the-​ neue-​marx-​lekt​ure Bloom, Harold. 1975. A Map of Misreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brandom, Robert. 2009. Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Broad, C. D. 1930. Five Types of Ethical Theory. London: Kegan Paul. Brown, Matthew, Douglas Dempster, and Dave Headlam. 1997. “The # IV(bV) Hypothesis: Testing the Limits of Schenker’s Theory of Tonality.” Music Theory Spectrum 19, no. 2. 155–​83. Cherlin, Michael. 1986. “Why We Got into Analysis and What to Get Out of It.” Theory and Practice 11: 53–​74. —​—​—​. 1988. “Hauptmann and Schenker: Two Adaptations of Hegelian Dialectics.” Theory and Practice 13: 115–​31. Citkowitz, Israel. 1933. “The Role of Heinrich Schenker.” Modern Music 11, no. 1: 18–​23. Cohen, Ted. 2002. “Three Problems in Kant’s Aesthetics.” British Journal of Aesthetics 42, no. 1: 1–​12. Cook, Nicholas. 1989. “Schenker’s Theory of Music as Ethics.” The Journal of Musicology 7, no. 4: 415–​39. —​—​—​. 1991. “The Editor and the Virtuoso, or Schenker versus Bülow.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 116, no. 1: 78–​95. —​—​—​. 2007. The Schenker Project: Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-​de-​siècle Vienna. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cross, Richard. 2014. “Medieval Theories of Haecceity.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://​plato.stanf​ord.edu/​entr​ies/​medie​val-​haecce​ity/​ Cumming, Naomi. 1994. “The Epistemology of 20th-​ century Music Theories.” Context: Journal of Music Research 8: 57–​59. David Cummiskey. 1996. Kantian Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DeBellis, Mark. 2010. “Schenkerian Theory’s Empiricist Image.” Music Theory Spectrum 32, no. 2: 111–​20. Don, Gary W. 1991. “Music and Goethe’s Theories of Growth.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington. Dubiel, Joseph. 1990. “‘When You Are a Beethoven’: Kinds of Rules in Schenker’s Counterpoint.” Journal of Music Theory 34, no. 2: 291–​340.

326  Bryan Parkhurst Ewell, Phillip. “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame,” Music Theory Online Volume 26, Number 2, September 2020. https://​mto​smt.org/​iss​ues/​mto.20.26.2/​ mto.20.26.2.ewell.html Forte, Allen. 1959. “Schenker’s Conception of Musical Structure.” Journal of Music Theory 3, no. 1: 1–​30. Gensler, Harry J. 1996. Formal Ethics. London: Routledge. Giovanelli, Marco. 2011. Reality and Negation—​Kant’s Principle of Anticipations of Perception. Dordrecht: Springer. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. 1995. Scientific Studies. Edited and translated by Douglas Miller. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Guck, Marion. 1996. “Music Loving, or the Relationship with the Piece.” Music Theory Online 2, no. 2. https://​mto​smt.org/​iss​ues/​mto.96.2.2/​mto.96.2.2.guck.html Guyer, Paul. 2007. “18th-​ Century German Aesthetics.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://​plato.stanf​ord.edu/​entr​ies/​aes​thet​ics-​18th-​ger​man/​ —​—​—​. 2009. “The Harmony of the Faculties in Recent Books on the Critique of the Power of Judgment.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67, no. 2: 201–​21. Haldane, John. 2020. “A Philosophy of Singular Style and Multiple Modes.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 87: 31–​60. Hegel, G. W. F. 1988. Introduction to the Philosophy of History. Translated by Leo Rauch. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Hepokoski, James A. 2009. Music, Structure, Thought: Selected Essays. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Hubbs, Nadine. 1991. “Schenker’s Organicism.” Theory and Practice 16: 143–​62. Ivanovitch, Roman. 2010. “Recursive/​Discursive: Variation and Sonata in the Andante of Mozart’s String Quartet in F, K. 590.” Music Theory Spectrum 32, no. 2: 145–​64. Jonas, Oswalt. 1972. Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks: eine Einführung in die Lehre Heinrich Schenkers. Vienna: Universal. Kant, Immanuel. 1898. “On a Supposed Right to Tell Lies from Benevolent Motives.” In Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics. Translated by T. K. Abbott. 361–​365. London: Longmans, Green and Co. —​—​—​. 1889, 1895, 1898. Lose Blätter aus Kants Nachlass. 3 volumes. Edited by Rudolf Reicke. Königsberg: Ferdinand Beyer. —​—​—​. 1960. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. Tanslated by T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson. New York: Harper and Row. —​—​—​. 1964. The Doctrine of Virtue. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. New York: Harper Torchbooks. —​—​—​. 1987. Critique of Judgment. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett. —​—​—​. 1996. The Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett. —​—​—​. 1997. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.—​—​—​. 2002. Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett. —​—​—​. 2009. The Metaphysics of Morals. Translated and edited by Mary Gregor. New York: Cambridge University Press. —​—​—​. 2017. Religion within the Limits of Bare Reason. Jonathan Bennett. https://​ www.early​mode​rnte​xts.com/​ass​ets/​pdfs/​kant1​793.pdf Katz, Adele T. 1935. “Heinrich Schenker’s Method of Analysis.” The Musical Quarterly 21, no. 3: 311–​29.

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  327 Kleingeld. 1998a. “Kant on the Unity of Theoretical and Practical Reason.” The Review of Metaphysics 52, no. 2: 311–​39. —​—​—​. 1998b. “The Conative Character of Reason in Kant’s Philosophy.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 36, no. 1: 77–​97. Korsgaard, Christine M. 1986. “Kant’s Formula of Humanity.” Kant-​Studien 77, nos. 1–​4: 183–​202. Korsyn, Kevin. 1988. “Schenker and Kantian Epistemology.” Theoria: Historical Aspects of Music Theory 3: 1–​58. —​—​—​. 1991. “Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence.” Music Analysis 10, no. 1/​2: 3–​72. —​—​—​. 1993. “Schenker’s Organicism Reexamined.” Intéegral 7: 82–​118. —​—​—​. 2009. “Schenker’s Vienna: Nicholas Cook on Culture, Race and Music Theory in Fin-​de-​siècle Austria.” Music Analysis 28, no. 1: 153–​79. Koslovsky, John. “The Early Schenkerians and the ‘Concept of Tonality.’” Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-​Atlantic 7, no. 1: 151–​85. Lopes, D.M. 2021. “Beyond the Pleasure Principle: A Kantian Aesthetics of Autonomy.” Estetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics, 58, no.1: 1–​18. Louden, Robert B. 1986 “Kant's Virtue Ethics” Philosophy, 61, no. 238: pp. 473–​489. Luong, Vivian. 2017. “Rethinking Musical Loving.” Music Theory Online 23, no. 2. https://​mto​smt.org/​iss​ues/​mto.17.23.2/​mto.17.23.2.luong.html Mann, Michael. 1949. “Schenker’s Contribution to Music Theory.” The Music Review 10: 3–​26. Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital, volume 1. London: Penguin. Morgan, Robert P. 2014. Becoming Heinrich Schenker: Music Theory and Ideology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Narmour, Eugene. 1977. Beyond Schenkerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Neuhouser, F. 2011. “The Idea of a Hegelian “Science” of Society.” In A Companion to Hegel. Edited by S. Houlgate and M. Baur. 281–​296. Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell. Parkhurst, Bryan J. 2014. “Review of Becoming Heinrich Schenker: Music Theory and Ideology, by Robert Morgan.” Current Musicology 8: 121–​33. —​ —​ —​ . 2017. “Making a Virtue of Necessity: Schenker and Kantian Teleology.” Journal of Music Theory 61, no. 1: 59–​109. Pastille, William. 1984. “Heinrich Schenker, Anti-​Organicist.” 19th-​century Music 8, no. 1: 29–​36. —​ —​ —​ . 1985. “Ursatz: The Musical Philosophy of Heinrich Schenker.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Cornell University. —​—​—​. 1995. “Schenker’s Value Judgments.” Music Theory Online 1, no. 6. https://​mto​ smt.org/​iss​ues/​mto.95.1.6/​mto.95.1.6.pasti​lle.html Reich, Willi. “Kant, Schenker, und der Nachläufer.” Dreiundzwanzig 15/​16: 29-​32. Rytting, Bryce. 1996. “Structure versus Organicism in Schenkerian Analysis.” Ph.D. Dissertation. Princeton University. Schenker, Heinrich. 1911. “Handwritten Double Letter from Heinrich Schenker and Jenny Kornfeld to Moriz Violin.” Schenker Documents Online. Translated by Ian Bent.https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ine.org/​docume​nts/​cor​resp​onde​nce/​OJ-​6-​ 5_​1.html —​—​—​.1912. Diary entry by Schenker September 23, 1912. Schenker Documents Online. Translated by William Drabkin. https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ine.org/​docume​nts/​ diar​ies/​OJ-​01-​11_​1​912-​09/​r0031.html

328  Bryan Parkhurst —​—​—​.1913. Paul Breisach: lesson: Tuesday October 21, 1913. Schenker Documents Online. Translated by Ian Bent. https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ine.org/​docume​nts/​less​ onbo​oks/​OC-​3-​2_​1​913/​r0048.html —​—​—​. 1914. Diary entry by Schenker December 22, 1914. Schenker Documents Online. Translated by William Drabkin. https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ine.org/​docume​nts/​ diar​ies/​OJ-​01-​16_​1​914-​12/​r0030.html —​—​—​.1916. Diary entry by Schenker February 25, 1916. Schenker Documents Online. Translated by William Drabkin. https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ine.org/​docume​nts/​ diar​ies/​OJ-​02-​01_​1​916-​02/​r0026.html —​—​—​. 1918. Diary entry by Schenker [Political Diary] December 13, 1918. Schenker Documents Online. Translated by William Drabkin. https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ ine.org/​docume​nts/​diar​ies/​OJ-​02-​13_​1​918-​12/​r0013.html —​—​—​. 1919a. Diary entry by Schenker [Political Diary] April 13, 1919. Schenker Documents Online. Translated by William Drabkin. https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ ine.org/​docume​nts/​diar​ies/​OJ-​02-​13_​1​919-​04/​r0013.html —​—​—​. 1919b. Diary entry by Schenker July 29, 1919. Schenker Documents Online. Translation by Scott Witmer. https://​sche​nker​docu​ment​sonl​ine.org/​docume​nts/​diar​ ies/​OJ-​02-​14_​1​919-​07/​r0029.html —​—​—​. 1954. Harmony. Translated by Elisabeth Mann Borgese. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —​—​—​.1988. “Three Essays from ‘Neue Revue’ (1894–​97).” Translated by Jonathan Dunsby and Horst B. Loeschmann. Music Analysis 7, no. 2: 133–​41. —​—​—​. 1992. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Translated and edited by John Rothgeb. New Haven: Yale University Press. —​—​—​. 2000. The Art of Performance. Translated by Irene Schott. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2001a. Counterpoint, volume 1. Translated by John Rothgeb and Jürgen Thym. Ann Arbor: Musicalia. —​—​—​.2001b. Counterpoint, volume 2. Translated by John Rothgeb and Jürgen Thym. Ann Arbor: Musicalia. —​—​—​ 2001c. Free Composition. Translated and edited by Ernst Oster. Hillsdale: Pendragon Press. —​—​—​. 2004. Der Tonwille, volume 1: Issues 1–​ 5. Edited by William Drabkin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2005a. Der Tonwille, volume 2: Issues 6–​10. Edited by William Drabkin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​. 2005b. “The Decline of the Art of Composition: A Technical-​Critical Study.” Translated by William Drabkin. Music Analysis 24, no. 1/​2: 33–​129. —​—​—​. 2014a. The Masterwork in Music, volume 1, 1925. Edited by William Drabkin. Mineola: Dover. —​—​—​.2014b. The Masterwork in Music, volume 2, 1926. Edited by William Drabkin. Mineola: Dover. —​—​—​. 2014c. The Masterwork in Music, volume 3, 1930. Edited by William Drabkin. Mineola: Dover. Sellars, Wilfrid. 1991. Science, Perception and Reality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd; New York: The Humanities Press, 1963; reissued in 1991 Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Co. Sessions, Roger. 1935. “Heinrich Schenker’s Contribution.” Modern Music 12, no. 4: 170–​78.

Completing the Triad: Schenker and Kantian Practical Philosophy  329 —​—​—​. 1938. “Escape by Theory.” Modern Music 15, no. 3. 192–​97. Smith, Peter H. 2013. “Tonal Pairing and Monotonality in Instrumental Forms of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms.” Music Theory Spectrum 35, no. 1: 77–​102. Solie, Ruth A. 1980. “The Living work: Organicism and Musical Analysis.” Nineteenth-​ Century Music: 4, no.2: 147–​56. Watkins, Holly. 2011. Metaphors of Depth in German Musical Thought: From E. T. A. Hoffmann to Arnold Schoenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wedler, Sebastien. 2020. “Adorno on Schenker: Reconstructing the Formation of a Critique.” Music Analysis 39, no. 2: 240–​65. Whittle, Barbara. 1994. The Cultural Context of the Theories of Heinrich Schenker.: Open University. Zuckert, Rachel. 2007. Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9 Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia Patricia Hall

Leni Riefenstahl surprisingly described her 1936 documentary film, Triumph of the Will, as having “a balletic quality,” noting the close choreography between the soundtrack, the rhythm of the shots, and the movements of the soldiers.1 In her next documentary, Olympia (1938), Riefenstahl actually achieved this ideal, particularly in the climax of the nearly four-​hour film, the men’s diving event. Without commentary, and accompanied by Herbert Windt’s music, the film shows male divers framed against a clouded sky, in different degrees of slow motion that accentuate their balletic arm and leg movements. Beginning with the three-​meter springboard and climaxing with the ten-​meter platform dives, Windt’s soundtrack creates a reverse choreography, in that the heavily accented music is superimposed on the already existing movements of the divers. By analyzing the structure and rhythmic accents of Windt’s themes, this essay shows how the musical form corresponds to the complex rhythm of shots that produce the formal design of the diving scene. The entire excerpt creates a musical composition with transitions and subsections, characteristic of the filmic model Riefenstahl learned from her mentor, Arnold Fanck. Like Triumph of the Will, Olympia is very much a propaganda film and was funded with unlimited resources from the German Ministry of Propaganda. Although Berlin was originally selected as the site of the Olympic Games for 1916, these plans were cancelled because of World War I. In his chapter on Olympia, titled “Perfect Bodies,” Jürgen Trimborn calls the decision to hold the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin “a major signal following World War I that the world was prepared to recognize Germany again as a full member of the community of nations.”2 Germany, now under the leadership of Adolph Hitler would use the Olympics—​and by extension Riefenstahl’s film—​to present an idealized Germany that had overcome the political and economic crises of the twenties. Hitler deemed the Olympics “a onetime opportunity for us to bring in foreign currency and improve our standing abroad.”3 Anti-​Semitic signs and literature were removed for the duration of the Olympic games. Nonetheless, DOI: 10.4324/9781003357797-14

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia  331 the executive board of the Amateur Athletic Union voted by a very slim margin to send an American team to Berlin, despite a half million signatures protesting this decision.4 In Olympia, Riefenstahl surpassed the novelty of the camera shots she had created for Triumph of the Will, for which cameramen wore roller skates, perched on the end of enormous fire truck ladders, and even lay on the ground. In what created a constant battle with Olympic officials, Riefenstahl’s team of cameramen filmed from pits in the ground, which produced the artistic backdrop of the clouded sky. The clouds were so critical to Riefenstahl’s images that she rejected scenes in which they were inadequate: There are clouds that one sees while shooting that they are good; when there are clouds that are not washed out, that have a contour, yes? And then there I soften a half fog, half cloudy-​grey sky … Luckily I had many shots taken, because I had reckoned from the beginning with a lot of rejects; and we didn’t use the bad ones, when there were bad clouds, and used the ones with good clouds … because we shot so much material in training. We couldn’t during the actual events; we would have disturbed the athletes.5 In order to capture the movements of the divers from many different perspectives, including from below, Hans Ertl, one of the cameramen who filmed the diving sequence, modified a technique he had used with ski jumpers in the Winter Olympics: I had the divers, as on the ski jump in Garmisch-​Partenkirchen, come out of all corners of the picture, rotating the camera with them, and thus obtained diving figures that were nothing short of unreal. Here I could have a thorough fling and transpose this yearning to fly into visual terms and do conjuring tricks on the screen.6 In addition to the “Drehschwenk” (rotating panning shot), described earlier, Hans Ertl built an underwater housing for his Sinclair camera that allowed him to film divers in a continuous shot of the entire arc of the dive, from the leap, to the continuation of the dive under water, and even the return to the surface. This technique is used most dramatically in the dive that leads to the musical recapitulation in the diving sequence. Ertl also perched above the divers, stabilized by an assistant. And finally, additional cameramen filmed alternate sides of the divers, to create a further sense of movement that peaks at the climax. Riefenstahl selected as her composer Herbert Windt, who had created the score for her previous documentary, Triumph of the Will. If Riefenstahl was “Hitler’s filmmaker,” then Herbert Windt was the Max Steiner of the Third Reich, composing scores for additional Nazi propaganda films such as Victory in the West (1941), Stukas (1941), and Campaign in Poland (1940). The

332  Patricia Hall composer of more than 70 film scores, Windt studied with Hanns Schrecker and was a passionate admirer of Wagner. Windt’s daughter has described how her family would listen to broadcasts of the Bayreuth Festival: He was a total Wagner fan. It was a must, when Bayreuth was going, for the family to sit around the radio and listen to everything. Hence, I grew up with Wagner. Wagner—​the interaction of text and music, the content—​that was very close to him.7 According to Steven Bach, the score to Olympia was recorded in January 1938, with Windt conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and a chorus of 340 voices. This lapse of time since the initial filming in August 1936 reflects the enormous amount of time that it took Riefenstahl to edit what amounted to 250 miles of film. Just viewing this material took ten weeks, and Riefenstahl did all the editing herself.8 Riefenstahl had begun her artistic career not as an actress but a dancer, and she is very specific about the function of music in Olympia: Herbert Windt was very much involved with the success of the film. His music is very good … I cut first, and when it was ready, what I had in mind, for instance in the prologue. Let’s take the prologue, which is completely supported by music, yes? I had conceived the music, and said, “It would be beautiful, Herbert, if you could do it so that when new themes appear in the picture, the heads or the temples or so on, that you change the theme exactly synchronous with the picture.” A melody with the picture together. And he did it perfect … I had the pieces played before we recorded them with an orchestra. We brought a piano into the cutting room, by the cutting table, and then played them. If it pleased me, good and OK. If not, I said, “the music is too independent, it’s stronger than the picture. I conceive it this way.”9 In Windt’s compositional drafts for the Prologue, housed in the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin, Windt lists each image, accompanied by a distinct leitmotif, and precisely times its appearance on screen. As the Discobolus statue begins to merge into the living figure of a discus thrower, Windt writes, “wird lebendig” (comes alive) (Example 9.1a). A new motif appears in the bass: C–​ Bb–​C–​Ab, which is repeated with each movement of the athlete. He notes the timing of the swings of his arm: “zweite Bewegung, dritte Bewegung” (second movement, third movement) in the upper margin of his sketch, culminating in a sustained tremolo as the athlete releases the discus (Example 9.1b). For the diving scene, Windt composed four themes that could fit the timing of the dives at multiple camera speeds. These themes are shown as Example 9.2. Theme A is characterized by a triplet rhythm of four phrases, which I have labeled A1-​4. Theme B is an antecedent/​consequent construction and is thus two phrases (B1-​2). Theme C, in a higher tessitura, features a slurred pick-​up

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia  333

Example 9.1a  Windt’s Compositional Kinemathek, Berlin

Draft

for

the

Prologue,

Deutsche

to the first beat that emphasizes the initial leap of the dive. And Theme D, with its hemiola, is conducive to dramatic shots of multiple leaps and twists. The dives are initially set with a single phrase. Moreover, the strong beats of each phrase correspond to the physical motions of the dive: the ascent off the diving board and the descent into the water. All sounds, including the splashes

334  Patricia Hall

Example 9.1b  Windt’s Compositional Kinemathek, Berlin

Draft

for

the

Prologue,

Deutsche

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia  335

Example 9.2 Themes

Example 9.3 A1, Normal Speed

Example 9.4 A1, Slow Motion

of water, were added after the film was edited. As a result, the soundtrack is muted of conflicting rhythms and ambient noise, like the reverberation of the springboard and the reaction of the crowd. Initially, at normal speed, we see only the ascent and the descent into the water. So, for instance, in the initial A theme we have the following accents (Example 9.3). In slow motion, as the A theme appears in its second statement, these basic accents form a kind of hypermeter, as shown in Example 9.4. When watching the more complex slow-​motion dives, we not only see more detail of the dive, but also notice that these details create further accents in the

336  Patricia Hall

Example 9.5 B1 and B2, Slow Motion

Example 9.6 C1 through C4, Slow Motion

space of more than one phrase. The first statement of the B phrase features a balanced image that reflects the antecedent consequent form: A Japanese diver ascends from the pool in the antecedent; a German diver ascends a ladder during the consequent (Example 9.5). During the second statement of the B phrase (in slow motion), the double spring from the springboard, as well as the diver’s twist in the air create a more complex pattern of accents (Example 9.6). The overall musical form of the diving sequence is an exposition: themes A, B, and C and a lengthy development featuring the A and B themes (Example 9.7).10 The recapitulation repeats A, B, and C and adds the exuberant D theme as a kind of dramatic acceleration before leading to the coda. This is a total of four minutes of music. Riefenstahl comments on the construction of a filmic climax: “It’s very important to put a climax at the right point in the film so there’s a continuous build-​up.”11 Referring specifically to the climax of Olympia, the men’s diving scene, she remarks: I wanted a crescendo of intensity. I began mundanely enough with the women’s diving, giving the divers’ names. With the men I left that out. I just edited to highlight the diving itself and the movement. They looked like birds swooping through the air. This looked very attractive. So to heighten the effect I used different tempi when editing. If you look, you’ll see the first dive is at normal speed. The next one is a bit slower, not quite slow motion, but almost. And so on until full slow motion. But even that wasn’t enough. They really had to look like birds. I achieved this by sometimes splicing in a sequence back to front. But it was hardly noticeable. It just enhanced the feeling of movement. It simply became a form of artistic expression.12 Riefenstahl’s explanation suggests several points about her concept of dramatic climax:

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia  337 Time 0’’

Category of Dive 3-meter springboard

18’’

Image

Section

Key

Theme

Camera Speed

Forward 2½ somersault Forward 1½ pike full twist Forward triple somersault Inward 1½ pike Japanese diver ascends German diver ascends ladder Reverse layout

Expo.

c/C

A1

24 fps

A2 A3

C

B2

Forward ½ twist

37’’

Forward pike ½ twist 57’’

Forward 1½ pike Backward 1½ layout

1’12’’

Inward 1½ pike Forward 2½ somersault Reverse ½ somersault Forward 1½ full twist Forward triple somersault Reverse layout

1’24’’

1’37’’

Devel.

2’25’’

2’40’’

Example 9.7  Men’s Diving Scene Synopsis

B1 B2 C1 C2 C3 C4 A1 A2 A3 A4 A sequence

48 fps

A sequence

D

Forward 1½ pike 10-meter platform

c C d

1’48’’ Forward full twist Forward layout (transition) Forward layout Reverse 1½ layout Forward 2½ pike Reverse layout

A4 B1

Recap.

B

B1

F♯ b♭ f c

B sequence B sequence A anticipation

76 fps

A1 A2 A3 B1

48 fps

C c C

338  Patricia Hall Time

Category of Dive

2’49’’ 3’09’’

3-meter springboard

10-meter platform 3’28’’

3’38’’

4’01’’

Example 9.7 (Continued)

Image Forward layout Reverse layout Forward layout Reverse layout Backwards double pike Forward 2½ pike Forward 1½ full twist Forward 1½ full twist Forward 2½ somersault Forward 1½ full twist Forward full twist Inward 1½ somersault Backward 2½ somersault Reverse full rotation layout Backward layout/ Reverse layout full rotation Reverse layout Forward layout Forward layout Backward full rotation layout Backward full rotation layout Forward layout Forward layout Forward layout Reverse layout Reverse layout Backward full rotation layout

Section

Key

Theme

Camera Speed

B2 C1 C2 C3 C4 D1

D2

D3 D4

B1

B2

Coda

B material

78 fps

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia  339 First, it is dependent on the surrounding scenes. There is a marked contrast between the previous event, the women’s freestyle 100 meter, with the roaring of the crowd and yelling in German of the announcer during the close finish, and the beginning of the men’s diving scene with no narration, only music. Similarly, a contrast is created between the climax of the men’s diving scene, and the dénouement of the entire film occurring in the following scene, the extinguishing of the Olympic flame. Riefenstahl also comments about this dichotomy of music and sound: You know, I tried to alternate music and sounds. I did this when there had been noise too long; then I would inter-​cut a sport that music accompanied. I cannot underscore a run with music, that’s impossible. But the hop, skip and jump has something so dance-​like about it, it demands music … It is very restful and pleasant, when you can relax after so much running and yelling.13 Second, she varies film speed, as well as the number of dives that take place within a fixed musical segment. In the transition to the recapitulation, the speed of the camera slows to 76 fps to portray the dramatic underwater dive, which is scored to a simple octave figure—​again, so as not to detract from the visual of the dive itself. As the music reaches the climax of the coda, the themes begin to support more and more dives. In the space of the D theme of the recapitulation, there are a total of nine dives; the shots are abbreviated to feature the turns of the divers in the air rather than their descent into the water. This climax is also reflected by the camera angle, which begins to alternate from side to side during every dive. In the coda, a layout, or “swan dive,” occurs every six beats. Only the leap of the diver off the platform is shown. Moreover, in this section, the film is overexposed so that the identity of the diver is unclear; one sees only a figure leaping against a clouded sky. In this way, the divers become superhuman, achieving the ideal of an Olympic god. While Triumph of the Will immediately tainted Riefenstahl with the label, “Hitler’s filmmaker,” Olympia brought additional charges in its so-​ called representation of Fascist art—​ “the cult of the body beautiful.”14 Susan Tegel, the author of Nazis and the Cinema, notes the similarity between the presentations of the male human body in Olympia and those of Hitler’s favorite sculptor, Arno Breker.15 His statue, “Bereitschaft” (Readiness), completed in 1939, is the perfect symbol for Germany’s military preparedness, revealed a few months later with Germany’s invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Susan Sontag, perhaps Riefenstahl’s most vehement critic, saw Olympia as the epitome of Fascist art—​not only in its presentation of the male figure, but in its striving for perfection:

340  Patricia Hall The Nazi films are epics of achieved community, in which everyday reality is transcended through ecstatic self-​control and submission; they are about the triumph of power … In Olympia, the richest visually of all her films (it uses both the verticals of the mountain films and the horizontal movements characteristic of Triumph of the Will), one straining, scantily clad figure after another seeks the ecstasy of victory, cheered on by ranks of compatriots in the stands, all under the still gaze of the benign Super-​Spectator, Hitler, whose presence in the stadium consecrates this effort.16 More generally, they [fascist aesthetics] flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain; they endorse two seemingly opposite states: egomania and servitude. The relations of domination and enslavement take the form of a characteristic pageantry: the massing of groups of people; the turning of people into things; the multiplication or replication of things; and the grouping of people/​things around an all-​powerful, hypnotic leader-​ figure or force. The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets, uniformly garbed and shown in ever swelling numbers. Its choreography alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, “virile” posing. Fascist art glorifies surrender, it exalts mindlessness, it glamorizes death.17 Susan Tegel argues that even though there is no verbal commentary in Riefenstahl’s documentaries—​another of Riefenstahl’s justifications for the claim that her films are not propaganda—​nevertheless the music itself acts as a commentary.18 Imagine the scene we have just viewed without music. It would be the equivalent of watching ballet without music, a technical exercise deprived of its emotional affect. Though more and more is being written about Riefenstahl’s documentaries, very little has addressed its “voice,” Herbert Windt’s music. I hope this essay will stimulate further analytical studies of Riefenstahl’s Olympia and her film music in general.19 Notes 1 The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, directed by Ray Muller (1993), 1:35. 2 Trimborn (2002, 131). 3 Ibid., 132. 4 Bach (2007, 145–​46). 5 Graham (1986, 156). 6 Ibid., 117. 7 Er war ein absoluter Wagner-​Fan. Es war ein Muß, wenn Bayreuth war, dann saß die Familie am Radio und hörte sich alles an. Ich bin also mit Wagner aufgewachsen. Wagner, das Zusammenspiel von Text und Musik, die Inhalte, das war ihm sehr nahe. (Volker 2003, 219)

Leni Riefenstahl’s “Ballet” Olympia  341 8 Bach (2007, 162.) 9 Graham (1986, 174–​75). 10 I would like to thank Russ Knight for graciously identifying the types of dives in this four-​minute excerpt. A video of the excerpt can be found at www.yout​ube.com/​ watch?v=​KwmY​Fz01​MxA 11 Muller, 1:11. 12 Muller, 2:03. 13 Graham (1986, 172). 14 Muller, 1:44. 15 Tegel (2007, 97). 16 Sontag (1991, 87). 17 Ibid., 91. 18 Tegel (2007, 86) and Muller, 1:15. 19 I’ve contributed this essay with great appreciation for the many conversations over the years that Kevin and I have had about films.

Bibliography Bach, Steven. 2007. Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. New York: Vintage. Graham, Cooper C. 1986. Leni Riefenstahl and Olympia. Metuchen, and London: Scarecrow Press. Pietsch, Andreas. 2009. Tönende Verführung: NS-​ Propaganda durch Filmmusik. Berlin: Mensch-​und-​Buch Verlag. Sontag, Susan. 1991. “Fascinating Fascism.” In Under the Sign of Saturn, 73–​105. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Tegel, Susan. 2007. Nazis and the Cinema. Cornwall: Bloomsbury Academic. Trimborn, Jürgen. 2002. Leni Riefenstahl: A Life. New York: Faber and Faber. Volker, Reimar. 2003. “Von oben sehr erwünscht” Die Filmmusik Herbert Windts im NS-​ Propagandafilm. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag. Walter, Michael. 1990. “Die Musik des Olympiafilms von 1938.” Acta Musicologica 62, no. 1: 82–​113.

Index

Note: Endnotes in this index are indicated by the page number followed by “n” and the note number e.g., 75–​6n19 refers to endnote 19 on pages 75 and 76. Page numbers in italic refers to Tables. Abrams, M. H. 11, 75–​6n19, 76n22 abstraction 19, 114, 249 Adorno, Theodor W. 16, 21, 128, 133n18, 135n40, 252n13, 313–​14, 325n57 adversity 47 Aesthetics 232 aesthetics 231, 235, 237, 251n2, 271, 302, 303, 306, 340 aesthetics congresses 247, 251n1, 251n6, 251–​2n11, 253n34, 253n35; see also Fourth Aesthetics Conference agency 264, 270, 277, 283, 297; compositional 115; moral 285, 305, 306; practical 307; rational 264, 275, 276, 282, 283, 281, 297–​8, 300; thematic 137n60, 138n64; tonal 278; virtuous 285 Alien 212, 213, 214, 222–​3, 227n13 Alkan, Charles-​Valentin 130 all-​comprehending invertible counterpoint 162–​200 alto voice 169–​70, 186, 189, 192, 199 American Musicological Society 27 analysis: as criterial formalism 290–​1; problematics of 27–​48, 52–​77, 81–​138 analytical discourse 3, 57, 73, 75n17 antagonisms 8, 90, 132n7 arias 124, 147, 156 Aristotle 75–​6n19, 262, 282, 294 Art of Fugue, The (Johann Sebastian Bach) 19, 20 assonance 61, 68, 69–​70 Atonal World, The 235, 240, 254n49 atonality 243, 245, 246–​7, 252n15, 316n9 auditory duties 265

Ausbildung 295 auxiliary cadence 108, 197, 200 B problem in E-​flat works 81–​2, 85–​90 babble 60–​2 Bach, Johann Sebastian 4, 20–​1, 103, 162–​200, 245, 266 background Kantianism 302–​10 Bakhtin, Mikhail 16, 205 ballet 6, 330–​1 beautiful, the 262, 271, 300–​1, 303–​4, 304–​5, 307, 308, 323n47 beauty 58, 61–​2, 247, 248, 275, 289, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305, 306, 308–​9, 309–​10, 323n47, 324n51 Beethoven, Ludwig van 2, 115; Appassionata 136–​7n53, 248; B minor 83; C minor 132n9; E-​flat major 83, 132n2; Eroica Symphony 4, 104, 128, 151–​2, 154–​5; Fifth Symphony 115, 136n45, 267–​8; Ninth Symphony 266, 289; Piano Sonata in A 114; Piano Sonata in D minor 137n60; Piano Sonata in E-​flat 132n6; Piano Sonata in E major 22; Piano Sonata in F minor 136–​7n53, 248; reduction 157; refrains 157–​8, 161n3; rondo form 156, 157; Sonata for Violin and Piano 147–​52; ternary form 156–​7; Third Symphony 13; 32 Variations on an Original Theme in C minor 265; tonality 240; transformation 242 Berlioz, Hector 3, 81, 82, 120–​1, 126, 130, 128, 138n65 betrogen 56, 59, 62, 63, 68, 70, 77n29

Index  343 Bildung 284; musical 291, 295–​6 Blind Boy, The: of Colley Cibber 29–​34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 47n4; of Craigher 34–​7, 38, 39, 46, 48n20; of Schubert 28, 37–​46, 46–​7, 48n19 Bloom, Harold 16, 205, 226n1 Boito, Arrigo 130 Brahms, Johannes 82, 130–​1, 205, 294 bricolage 296–​7 cadence: auxiliary 108, 197, 200; perfect authentic (PAC) see perfect authentic cadence (PAC); tonal 240, 241 Caplin, William 133n20, 135n33, 147 Categorical Imperative (CI) 267–​73, 274, 276, 278, 282, 283, 289, 290, 293, 298, 303, 317–​18n18, 321–​2n40, 322n42 categorical imperative of the ear 267, 276, 285–​6, 286–​7 chain rondo 133n22 Cherubino 147–​8, 151, 156 Chopin, Frédéric: discovery of the unconscious by 215; Preludes 15, 205–​28 chords 158–​9, 218, 221, 240, 321n33; Bach’s Fugue in G minor 170, 173, 175, 177, 184, 186, 188, 189, 190, 192, 195, 197; Die Liebe hat gelogen 56, 74–​5n10, 77n29, 77n30; diminished-​ seventh 88, 89, 95, 101, 103, 184, 186, 188, 189, 197; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 81–​2, 84–​5, 87, 88, 89, 92, 94, 99, 102, 103, 107, 132n3, 133n17, 136–​7n53 choreography 6, 330, 340 chromatic inflections 169, 170, 177 chromatic passing tone 195, 197 chromatic pitch 28, 64, 86, 130 chromatic relations 86, 131–​2 chromatic scale 184, 186, 188–​9; Die Liebe hat gelogen 68, 74n10, 75, 77n30; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 81, 87, 88, 89–​90, 117, 121 chromatic tonality 132n5 chromaticism 116, 240, 243 Cibber, Colley 29–​34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 47n4 clinamen 222 Clock symphony (Franz Joseph Haydn) 157, 161 close reading 27–​48, 52–​77, 81–​138 closure: Bach’s Fugue in G minor 195, 198, 200, 218; Die Liebe hat gelogen 52–​7, 72, 73; E-​flat/​B complex in

nineteenth-​century music 81, 88, 89, 115, 133–​4n25, 138n63; rondo forms 147, 152, 157 clouds, in Olympia 330, 331, 339 coherence 12, 13, 15, 245, 266, 276, 296, 314n3, 319n26, 319n27, 320n32 compositional agency 116 compositional constraints 147–​61, 162–​200 compositional process 147–​61, 162–​200 constitutivism 297–​8, 298–​9, 302 continuation-​repeat 89 counterpoint: all-​comprehending invertible 162–​200; double 162, 163, 167, 173, 175, 200; free 169, 170, 173, 175; invertible see invertible counterpoint counter–subject 162, 163–​7, 169, 170, 173, 175, 177, 184–​92, 198–​9 couplets 165; Der blinde Knabe 36, 40, 41, 42, 48n14; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 89–​90, 99–​100, 133n22, 133n24; rondo forms 148, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158–​9, 160, 161, 161n2 Craigher, Jacob Nikolaus 34–​7, 38, 39, 46, 48n20 criterial formalism 275, 290–​2, 302, 308, 310 cryptocycle 207 cultural history 5, 238 dance 61, 88, 98–​9, 111, 248, 339 Debussy, Claude 132n5, 242–​3, 244 decentering Chopin’s Preludes 207–​12 Decentering Music 1, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 27, 205–​6, 207 deception 56–​7, 59–​60, 62–​4, 66–​8, 71–​2, 75n18, 77n29 deliberate disorientation 39 deliberative oratory 75–​6n19 deontology 264, 303, 317n13, 322–​3n46 Der blinde Knabe 3, 27–​48 Derrida, Jacques 3, 12–​13, 14, 15, 57–​9, 71, 75n15, 221, 228n22 development 149–​50; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 82, 89, 90, 91, 93, 99, 100, 103, 105, 127, 133n18, 135n33, 135n39; human 206–​7, 210, 212, 213 diatonic scale 74–​5n10, 169, 173, 240, 267; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​ century music 81, 84–​5, 86, 89, 94,

344 Index 96–​7, 98–​9, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 119, 124, 128, 137n56, 138n71 diatonicization 99, 119 Dichterliebe, op. 48 (1840) (Robert Schumann) 129 Die Form 232, 235, 236, 240, 245, 252n25 Der Freischütz (1817–​21) (Carl Maria von Weber) 129 Die Götterdämmerung (1869–​74) (Richard Wagner) 130 Die Liebe hat gelogen 3, 52–​77 Die Mainacht op. 43, no 2 (text by Ludwig Hölty) (1868) (Johannes Brahms) 130–​1 Die Winterreise 81, 82, 91, 92, 127 diminished-​seventh chords 88, 89, 95, 101, 104, 184, 186, 188, 189, 197 disability: in Schubert’s Der blinde Knabe 27–​48; models of 32–​3, 37 disability studies (DS) 3, 27, 28, 38, 47n2 disabled bodies, representation in literature of 33 discourse: analytical 3, 57, 73, 75n17; epideictic 60, 62; institutional 7; literary 75n13; about music 2, 3, 8–​9, 16, 75n17 displacement 39–​40, 42–​3, 44, 45, 46, 83, 84–​5, 210 dissonance 101; harmonic 70; indirect 39, 48n12, 48n16, 48n17; metrical 39, 43, 46, 133n21; subliminal 48n17 distance 3, 10, 70, 85, 162, 197, 217, 301 diving scene, from Windt’s soundtrack music for Olympia 6, 330, 331, 332–​7, 339 Doctrine of Virtue 284, 294–​5 dominant key 109, 169 doodle 61–​2 double counterpoint 162, 163, 167, 173, 175, 200 doubleness 134n30, 279 dramatic climax, in Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia 336–​9 duties: auditory 265; musical 302, 318n18; pedagogical 265–​6; performance of 271–​2 Dvořák, Antonín 131 E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 3, 81–​138 Egloff, Louise 32 elaboration of descending tenths 192 elongations 41, 45

enharmonic change 188–​9 epideictic discourse 60, 62 epideictic oratory 75–​6n19 epideixis 57, 75–​6n19 epistemology 2, 128–​9, 262, 316n8; musical 262, 316n8 ergon 57–​9, 71, 77n26 Eroica sketchbook 151–​3 Eroica Symphony 4, 115, 151–​4, 161, 165, 236 esprit 2, 305 ethical formalism 321n35 ethical theory 263–​4, 276, 311, 317n13, 319–​20n27 ethics 235, 253n41, 262–​3; Kantian 262, 264, 274, 276–​85, 311, 317n13, 318n21; Schenkerian 267, 269–​73 excessive repetition 150, 152 extramusicality 4, 82, 84, 99, 127, 128–​9 Extraordinary Measures 3, 32–​3 Fascist art 339–​40 Faust 81, 82, 85, 120–​7, 130, 132, 138n65, 138n66, 227n12 Faust Symphony (Franz Liszt) 130, 132 Feminine Endings 11 Finale (Allegro marziale animato) (Franz Liszt) 115, 120 first-​practice tonality 99 formalism: criterial 275, 290–​1, 302, 308, 310; ethical 321n35; Hanslickian 114 Fourth Congress for Aesthetics and General Art Theory 231–​2 fragmentation 147–​8, 156, 208–​9, 210, 211, 218, 225s frames 52–​7, 61–​2, 72, 73, 128, 136n47, 136n51 Free Composition 211, 212 free composition 286, 295–​6 free counterpoint 169, 170, 173, 175 Freud, Sigmund 94, 102, 133n12, 207, 210, 215, 219, 220, 221, 228n21 Freudian uncanny 84–​5, 91, 93, 94, 97, 102, 124, 127, 131, 133n11, 134n28, 134n30, 214, 216 fugal entries 167, 168, 173, 177–​84 fugal exposition 169–​73 fugue countersubject 162, 163–​7, 167, 170, 173, 175, 177, 184–​92, 198–​9 Fugue in G minor from Book 2 of 202(Johann Sebastian Bach) 162–​200 fugue subject 162, 163–​7, 169, 173, 175, 177, 179, 184–​92, 198–​9, 200

Index  345 fugue theme 164, 166, 169, 175, 190 Funeral March, from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony 151–​4, 156–​7 future 36, 75–​6n19, 104, 114, 249 gelogen 59, 62, 75n18 German idealism 10 G-​minor Fugue (Johann Sebastian Bach) 162–​200; overall plan of 167–​9 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 85, 120, 121, 138n66, 211, 227n12, 243, 248; empiricism of 318n21; organicism of 115, 136–​7n53; Umgestaltung process of 227 good, the 303–​4, 304–​5, 317n13 Gothic in Prometheus 222–​3 Gounod, Charles 3, 81, 82, 120, 123, 124, 125, 126, 130, 131 grand narratives 1, 10, 11 Grande sonate: Les quatre âges, op. 33 (1847) (Charles-​Valentin Alkan) 130 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals 267, 284 Hanslick, Eduard 320–​1n33, 23n47 Hanslickian formalism 114 harmonic dissonance 70 harmonization 77n30, 164, 304, 305 Harmony 266–​7, 280, 288 harmony 12, 41–​2, 45, 65, 74n8, 280, 285, 295; Bach’s Fugue in G minor 162, 164, 166, 169, 170, 175, 177, 189, 191–​2, 195; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 103, 119, 121, 132; Riezler on unity of the arts 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 248 Hauer–​Schönberg 12-​tone system 243 Haydn, Franz Joseph 16, 81, 132n2, 133n19, 157, 158–​61 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 15, 213, 232, 251n9, 262, 269, 274, 275–​6, 280, 293, 310, 318n19 hemiola 170, 173, 175, 333 hermeneutic dimensions, of the E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 3, 81–​138 hermeneutics 2, 52–​3, 56, 60, 71, 206, 217, 221, 225, 226, 260, 273, 290–​1, 302 hexatonic-​poles (HEXPOLE) 83, 84, 85, 90–​1, 93, 99, 129, 131, 134n28, 134n30 Hindemith, Paul 332, 243–​4, 246, 249, 254n49

history of philosophy 5 hot tears 59, 62, 63, 66 human development 206–​7, 210, 212, 213 humanism 5, 103, 111, 206–​7, 209–​10, 212–​13, 222, 223, 225, 226, 226n3, 264 humanist subject, and Prometheus 212–​15 humanity 214, 278, 279, 282, 283, 284, 285–​6, 287, 297, 320n30 Hunt, Graham 154–​5 hypothetical BRD-​conformant rhythm 45 hypothetical closure 195 hypothetical versions 188, 192 Ich und Du op. 11, no. 1 (1901) (Hans Pfitzner) 131 imagery 3, 6, 11, 12, 28, 331; Chopin’s Preludes 214, 215, 220, 222, 223; Die Liebe hat gelogen 52, 60, 61, 62, 63, 73, 76n23; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 91, 115, 125, 133n11, 136–​7n53, 137–​8n61; Riezler on unity of the arts 235, 237, 247, 248, 249; Schenker and Kantian practical philosophy 260, 261, 278, 279–​80, 307, 314n3 imagination 21, 137–​8n61, 205, 304, 305–​6, 307 Impromptu in E-​flat (Franz Schubert) 82, 94 indirect dissonance 39, 48n12, 48n16, 48n17 instability 3, 86, 101, 303 institutional discourse 7 interdisciplinarity 205–​26, 231–​55, 260–​324, 330–​1 interpretation, levels of 273–​6 intertextuality 13, 15, 205–​6, 208, 209, 227n11 interval cycle 98, 99, 101, 102, 127, 135n40 introspective hiatuses 127 inversion 71, 103, 105, 157, 162, 189, 190 invertible counterpoint, in Bach’s Fugue in G minor 4, 20, 162–​8, 170, 173, 175, 177, 179, 184–​92, 198, 199, 200, 201n4 irony 13, 76n21, 124, 207, 208, 213, 223, 225 isomorphism 88, 89, 128, 274, 300 Jachelutta, Jacob Nicolaus Craigher de 34–​7, 38, 39, 46, 48n20

346 Index Jameson, Fredric 14, 208, 225, 227n6 Jewel Song 124, 125 judgments of purposiveness 261–​2 judicial oratory 75–​6n19 juxtaposition 3, 34, 36, 39, 83, 94–​5, 102, 118, 124 Kant, Immanuel: Categorical Imperative of see Categorical Imperative (CI); ethics of 262, 264, 274, 276–​85, 311, 313n17, 318n21; practical philosophy of 5, 260–​324 Kantianism 273, 274–​310 Kegelstatt Trio (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) 85, 86–​90, 95, 99 keys: dominant 109–​10, 165; tonic 169 Korsyn, Kevin: autobiographical details of 16–​19; interview with 7–​22; student’s recollection of 21–​2 Kristeva, Julia 205, 208, 209, 226n2, 227n11 La damnation de Faust 82, 120, 122 Lacan, Jacques 5, 210, 213, 215, 220, 225, 227n4, 228n15, 228n17 language game 224–​5, 226 Leiermann 91, 93, 94, 97, 102, 134n29 levels of interpretation 273–​6 Lieb’ Liebchen, leg’s Händchen auf’s Herze mein no. 4 from Liederkreis, op. 24 (Robert Schumann) 129 linear progressions 211, 224, 293, 295–​6, 314n3, 319n26 linguistics 75n18 Liszt, Franz 3, 123, 137n55, 137n59, 137–​8n61; Faust Symphony 130, 132; Mephisto Waltz no. 2 131; Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-​flat 82, 115–​21, 127, 128, 137n57, 137n58 literary discourse 75n13 love 28, 34, 147, 221; Die Liebe hat gelogen 52–​3, 56, 59–​60, 63, 64, 68, 70, 72, 77n29, 77n32; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 83, 91, 92, 109, 115, 118, 119–​20, 121, 122, 123, 126, 127, 134n30; Schenker and Kantian practical philosophy 265, 272, 278, 280, 285, 295–​6, 302, 314n3, 323n46, 324n55 lyric poetry 52–​3, 60–​1, 73, 74n2, 74n4, 76n22, 76n25 lyrical form 62, 98, 99, 135n40

McClary, Susan 9, 11–​12 Mahler, Gustav 131, 132 Marienleben 244 Mass no. 6 in E-​flat, D. 950 (1828) (Franz Schubert) 129 masterworkmanship 291, 301, 302, 323n48 materiality 21, 114, 115, 123 medial caesura 88, 133n16 Mefistofele (1868, rev.1875–​76) (Arrigo Boito) 130 melodic fluency 286 melody 34, 42, 74n8, 218, 219, 242, 332; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 86, 89, 90, 93, 99, 103; rondo forms 150, 155, 157, 158 melos 60–​3, 71, 76n23 memory 16, 22, 34, 157, 219, 224; E-​flat/​ B complex in nineteenth-​century music 101, 102, 104, 114, 126, 135n42 Mendelssohn, Felix 129 Mephisto Waltz no. 2 (Franz Liszt) 130 Metaphysics of Morals 267, 284 meta-​self-​reflexivity 3 methodology 1, 8, 10, 128, 221, 253n40, 260, 262, 316n8 metrical conflict, in Schubert’s Der blinde Knabe 3, 27–​48 metrical dissonance 39, 43, 46, 133n21 mimesis 21 Ministry of Truth 7, 8 missing sections 147–​61 Moebius-​strip logic 14 Moment Musical 28, 52, 53, 86, 211 moral agency 285, 305, 306 moral law 264–​5, 269, 270, 274, 293, 295, 303, 307, 308, 319n27 morality 268, 275, 281, 282, 285, 295, 299, 300, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 320n30, 322–​3n46, 323n49, 323–​4n52 motivic network 112 motto 20, 94–​5, 115, 117–​18, 118, 119 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 3, 81, 95, 96, 132n2, 147, 148; E-​flat/​B problem of 85–​91 multidimensionality 244, 245, 246 multimedia studies 5 music analysis 2, 64, 73–​4n1, 75n15, 208, 211, 275, 310, 313; Kevin Korsyn on 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16; text-​ 56, 57, 73 music scholarship 47n2, 52, 56 music theory 1–​2, 4–​5, 6, 52, 75n13, 233, 311, 312–​13, 315; Chopin’s Preludes

Index  347 205, 206, 224, 225; Kevin Korsyn on 7, 13–​14, 16, 18, 19 musical Bildung 294, 295–​6 musical duties 302, 317–​18n18 musical epistemology 260, 316n8 musical Erziehung 295 musical events 15, 16, 261 musical meaning 52, 56, 128 musical research 14, 27 musical riddles 57, 64–​71, 226 musical structure 10–​11, 128, 241, 265 musical teleology 297 musical transcendentalism 117 musical value 292, 296 musical virtue 294–​6 musicality 298, 299, 300, 303, 306 music-​hermeneutic interpretation 127 nachtonale Musik 244, 248 natural inclinations 284–​5 Nazism 233, 235, 236, 247, 254n51, 331, 339, 340 neo-​Kantianism 274 New Criticism 52, 56, 73–​4n1, 74n2, 74n4 New Musicology 9–​11 Ninth Symphony (Ludwig van Beethoven) 252–​3n31, 266, 289 nocturnes 118–​19, 214, 218, 219, 220–​1 nonnormative structures 46 nurturance 295 Olympia 6, 330–​1 ontology 15, 59, 71, 77n26, 212–​13, 222; de-​ 264, 303, 317n13, 322–​3n46 opera 47n2, 81, 116, 120, 123, 124, 126, 243 opsis 61–​3, 71, 76n23 oratory 75–​6n19 parerga 57–​64, 71 past 103–​5, 114, 127, 232 pedagogy 17, 117, 265–​6, 294, 313 perfect authentic cadence (PAC) 89, 133n16, 150–​60, 165, 175–​7 performance: of duty 271–​2; and E-​flat/​ B complex in nineteenth-​century music 93, 114, 116, 117, 127–​8, 137n55, 138n62 Pfitzner, Hans 131 Pflichten 263–​4, 280 Piano Concerto no. 1 in E-​flat (Franz Liszt) 82, 114–​15, 123, 127, 127–​8, 137n57, 137n58

Piano Quartet in E-​flat, op. 47 (1842) (Robert Schumann) 129 Piano Quartet no. 2 in E-​flat, op. 87, B. 162 (1889) (Antonín Dvořák) 131 Piano Trio in E-​flat major (Franz Schubert) 81, 82, 96, 98 pictorial space 238, 239, 241–​2, 245 pitch 28, 64, 70, 81–​2, 86, 88, 90–​1, 93, 95, 99, 130, 132n1, 132n2, 132n5, 211, 217 pity 31, 33–​4, 36, 213 pizmonim 9 Platen, August von 3, 52–​77 Plato 15, 289 poetry 3, 11, 18, 215–​16, 232; lyric 52–​3, 60–​1, 73, 74n2, 74n4, 76n22, 76n25; see also Der blinde Knabe; Der Liebe hat gelogen polyphony 240, 255n58 polytonality 244 posthumanism, and Chopin’s Preludes 5, 205–​28 post-​Kantianism 275 poststructuralism 3, 15, 57 poststructuralist literary theory 5 posttonal music 244, 250 poverty 34, 47n4, 269 practical agency 307 practical reason 5, 264, 271, 277, 282, 283, 284, 299 Preludes, of Chopin 205–​28; decentering of 207–​12; semiotic square for analysis of 208, 209, 210, 211, 223, 227n5, 227n6, 306 problematics of analysis 27–​48, 52–​77, 81–​138 Prometheus: the Gothic in 222–​3; and the humanist subject 212–​15 pseudo-​Kantianism 274 purposivism 93, 261–​2, 301, 305–​6, 316n7 rain 215, 216–​17, 228n19 Raindrop Prelude (Frédéric Chopin) 5, 206, 208, 212, 214–​23, 225, 226, 228n14, 228n20 raindrops in context 215–​17 rational agency 264, 275, 276, 282–​4, 297–​8, 300 rationalism 276–​85, 292, 302 rationality 264, 280–​84, 292, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 321n34 Raumgefühl 5, 232, 238 recapitulation 149–​50, 320–​1n33; E-​flat/​ B complex in nineteenth-​century music

348 Index 89, 90, 98, 102, 105, 106, 112, 113, 133n23, 135n33, 135n35, 135n40, 136–​7n53, 137n60; Riefenstahl’s Olympia 331, 336, 339 reciprocal means-​ends determination (RMED) 309, 324n54 reduction 138n71, 148, 156, 157, 169, 261, 292, 312 refrains 90, 91, 133n24, 149–​61, 161n3, 165 religion 36, 37, 103, 104, 111, 113, 268, 310–​11, 317–​18n18, 318n19 Renaissance 11, 12, 103, 162, 232, 238–​9, 241, 242, 245, 246, 254n44, 254n45 repetition 41, 45, 48n14, 162, 165, 217; Die Liebe hat gelogen 64, 66–​7, 70, 76n25, 77n30; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 89, 93, 95, 98, 104; rondo forms 147, 149, 150, 152, 156, 157, 161, 161n2 resolution 20, 56, 65, 70, 81, 86, 88, 89, 90, 99, 109, 186 Rethinking Music 13–​14 retransition 81, 89–​91, 95, 101, 109, 133n19, 156, 158, 159 reverse choreography 6, 330 Rhenish Symphony (Robert Schumann) 81, 82, 103–​14, 127, 128, 136–​7n53 rhetoric 11, 59, 75–​6n19, 82, 86, 310 rhyme 61–​3, 76n25, 263 rhythm 3, 6, 224, 231–​2, 243, 249; Bach’s Fugue in G minor 163–​4, 166, 167, 169, 174; Der blinde Knabe 28, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46; Die Liebe hat gelogen 60–​6, 68–​71, 76n22, 76n25, 77n26; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​ century music 90, 95, 112–​13, 115–​16; Riefenstahl’s Olympia 330, 332, 335 riddle 57, 61, 63–​4, 64–​71, 226 Riefenstahl, Leni 6, 330–​1 Riezler, Walter 5, 231–​55 romanticism 3–​4, 11, 81–​2, 85, 113, 117, 120, 208, 239, 240, 250, 254n47, 312–​13 rondo forms 4, 90, 133n22, 147–​61 rounded binary 150, 152, 153, 157, 161n1 Sand, George 214, 215, 216, 220, 225, 228n19 Schenker, Heinrich 5–​6, 13, 134n27, 135n32, 138n71; analysis of 4, 163, 205, 211, 227n12; constitutivism of 297–​8, 298–​69, 302; ethics of

267, 269–​73; and Kantian practical philosophy 260–​324; Riezler on 252–​3n31 Schenker and Kantian Epistemology (SKT) 5, 260, 261, 276, 296–​7, 314–​15, 320n32 Schoenberg, Arnold 84, 85, 86, 133n13–​15, 161n1 Schubert, Franz 82, 94, 129; see also Der blinde Knabe; Die Liebe hat gelogen Schubert cluster 91–​103 Schumann, Robert 3, 76n21, 103, 104, 129–​30, 135n44, 136n49, 136n50; Rhenish Symphony 81, 82, 103–​14, 127, 128, 136–​7n53; Symphony no. 3 in E-​flat 82, 103–​4, 107 second-​order analysis 14–​15 second-​practice tonality 99 Sehnsucht op. 10, no. 1 (1901) (Hans Pfitzner) 131 self-​completeness 101 self-​description 57 self-​possession 57, 72, 75n16, 284 self-​referentiality, in Schubert’s Setting of Platen’s Die Liebe hat gelogen 52–​77 self-​reflexivity 1, 3, 52, 62, 63, 68 semiotic square 208, 209, 210, 211, 223, 227n5, 227n6, 306 semiotics 83, 205–​6, 227n8 separation 95, 111 sequence 75n18, 88, 95, 167, 170, 190, 243, 249, 331, 336, 337 Shelemay, Kay Kaufman 9–​10 Sibelius, Jean 131 Sigmund Spaeth Principle 12, 13 SLIDE chords 84–​5 slow motion examples, from Windt’s soundtrack music for Olympia 330, 335–​6 social antagonism 8 Society for Ethnomusicology 27 Society for Music Theory 27, 260, 261 Sonata for Clarinet (or Viola) and Piano in E-​flat, op. 120, no. 2 (1894) (Johannes Brahms) 131 Sonata for Violin and Piano (Ludwig van Beethoven) 149 sonata form 99, 104–​5, 115, 133n18, 135n40, 148 sonata-​rondo form 133n22, 149–​50, 154, 161n3 song cycle 97, 102

Index  349 songs 91, 93, 113, 128, 129–​30, 134n30, 135n42; see also Der blinde Knabe; Die Liebe hat gelogen; Jewel Song soprano voice 47n7, 167, 170, 175, 199 Sorge 59, 63, 70 sound-​associations 61 sounds 8, 64, 73, 75n18, 224, 281, 290, 292, 294, 333, 335, 339; speech 60, 62, 63, 66, 76n22 Spaeth, Sigmund 12–​13 spatial sensitivity 5 speech sounds 60, 62, 63, 66, 76n22 stability 12, 56, 58 Steblin, Rita 83 Straus, Joseph 27, 32, 33, 37, 47n1, 47n2, 47n6 String Quintet no. 3 in E-​flat, op. 97 (American) (1893) (Antonín Dvořák) 131 structure: musical 10–​11, 127, 241, 265; nonnormative 46; tonal 93, 95, 127, 134n26, 136n51, 169, 173, 175, 198; triadic 93, 94, 104, 113, 262, 296–​7 subject 8, 20, 21, 101, 113, 137n60; fugue 162, 163–​7, 169, 170, 173, 175, 177, 184–​92, 198–​9 subjectivity 5, 76n25, 111, 137n60, 205–​6, 210, 211, 224–​6 sub-​Kantianism 275 subliminal dissonance 48n17 suffering 15, 16, 46–​7, 104, 272 suspensions 20, 64–​6, 77n27, 166, 173, 189 symbolic exhibition 304 symphonic cluster 103–​20, 137n57 Symphony no. 1 in C minor, op. 11 (1824) (Felix Mendelssohn) 129 Symphony no. 3 in E-​flat (Robert Schumann) 82, 103–​5 Symphony no. 5 in E-​flat, op. 82 (three versions: 1915, 1916, 1919) (Jean Sibelius) 131–​2 Symphony no. 7 in E minor (1904–​05) (Gustav Mahler) 130 Symphony no. 101, the Clock (Franz Joseph Haydn) 157, 161 syncopation 20, 109–​10 synthesis 5–​6, 95, 101, 117, 119, 127, 261, 267, 269, 276–​85, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290–​2, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 300–​1, 30, 303, 306–​7, 308, 309, 319n26, 319n27, 320n28, 320n30, 320n31, 320n32, 322n41, 322n44, 323n47, 323n48

taking away, from repetitions 147, 154, 156, 157, 160, 161 Tappert, Wilhelm 13 tapping bass notes 46 teleological judgments 261–​2, 316n7, 316n8 teleology 104, 114, 136n49, 209, 297, 300, 304, 324n54 temporal deferrals 71–​3 tenor voice 169, 170, 184–​5, 186, 188, 189, 192, 195, 199, 217, 218 ternary form 66, 94, 105, 130–​1, 132n3, 135n33, 147, 156–​7 text and context 10–​11, 14 text-​music analysis 56, 57, 73 thematic agency 137n60, 137n64 thematic mediation 119 thematic process 119 thematic transformation 115, 116 themes of Windt’s soundtrack music for Olympia 330, 332–​3, 335, 336, 337–​8, 339 theory of ethics 263–​4, 276, 311, 317n13, 319–​20n27 thought operation 249 tonal agency 278 tonal autonomy 111, 113, 278 tonal cadence 240, 241 tonal overview 100, 108, 114, 134n26 tonal parataxis 95 tonal problems 3–​4, 28, 81, 85–​6, 89–​90, 93, 113, 133n21 tonal rationalism 292 tonal space 241, 242, 243–​4 tonal structure 93, 96, 130, 134n26, 136n51, 169, 173, 175, 198 tonality 11, 56, 66, 77n29; E-​flat/​B complex in nineteenth-​century music 82, 99, 105, 121, 132n5, 136n50, 138n63; Riezler on unity of the arts 240, 242–​3, 244, 246, 250; Schenker and Kantian practical philosophy 262, 282, 285–​6, 281, 291, 306, 316n9 tones 6, 83, 86, 103, 195, 197, 243, 274, 275, 276, 277n1, 278, 279, 280, 281, 290, 291, 294, 296, 297–​8, 299, 303, 306, 321n38, 322n40, 322n45, 323–​4n52; as ends 285–​92, 296, 297, 302, 306, 319n27 tonic key 170 tonic harmony 164, 166, 169 tonicity 105, 108 tonicization 70, 169–​70, 175–​7, 240

350 Index Tonraum 241–​4, 254n56 Tovey, Donald Francis 19–​20, 163, 167, 190, 201n3 Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence 1, 15, 205 Tower of Babel 7, 207 transience 101, 117, 136n51 transition 62, 165, 240, 268, 305; E-​flat/​ B complex in nineteenth-​century music 86, 87–​8, 103, 104, 107, 112, 115, 122n16, 133n23; Riefenstahl’s Olympia 330, 336–​337, 339; rondo forms 151, 155, 158, 159, 160 transposition 90, 93, 119, 133–​4n25, 162 triadic structure 93, 94, 104, 113, 262, 296–​7 Trio in E-​flat major (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) 85, 86–​90, 94, 97 tripartite structure of Kant’s ethics 276–​85 Triumph of the Will 330, 331, 339, 340 tropes 102–​4, 127, 133n25, 134n30, 136n47, 207, 208, 227n5 Tropfen 59, 62, 63, 66 truth 12, 18, 235, 247; Die Liebe hat gelogen 57, 59–​60, 63, 67–​8, 71–​2, 75n18; Schenker and Kantian practical philosophy 266, 269, 270, 278, 279, 282, 316n7, 321n37, 323n47 Tugendlehre 294–​5, 296, 302 12-​tone system, of Hauer–​Schönberg 243 uncanny, Freudian see Freudian uncanny unconscious, discovery by Chopin of the 215 Unheimlichkeit see Freudian uncanny unique capabilities of the blind 32 unity of the arts 5, 231–​55 unmusicality 300 unsiloing art and music in the Weimer era 5, 231–​55 unsynthetic interpretations of synthetic pieces 293

Urmusik 248 utterance 16, 57, 60, 62, 68–​9, 75n13, 75n17, 76n20 Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann for piano, four hands, op. 23 (1861) (Johannes Brahms) 130 Vierter Kongress für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 231–​2 viola 90, 131, 133n24 Violin Sonata (Ludwig van Beethoven) 149–​50, 152, 154, 155, 156, 165 virtue 236, 268, 274, 284–​5, 296, 307; musical 294–​6 virtuosity 114, 116, 261 virtuous agency 285 voices: alto 169–​70, 186, 189, 192, 199; soprano 47n7, 167, 170, 175, 199; tenor 169, 170, 184, 186, 188, 189, 192, 195, 199, 217, 218 Wagner, Richard 84, 111, 129, 130, 240, 248, 254n51, 332, 340n7 wanderer, the 93–​4, 99 Wanderer Fantasy (Franz Schubert) 102 wandering melodies 13, 42 Weber, Carl Maria von 129 Well-​Tempered Clavier, The 4, 162 Werkbund 234, 235, 236, 248, 252n19 Werktreue 114, 137n55 whole/​fragment binary 208 wholeness 208–​9, 210–​11, 224, 225–​6, 319n27 whole-​tone music 243 Windt, Herbert 6, 330, 331–​3, 334, 340 Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft (ZÄK) 231, 237, 251n6, 253n36 zombie rules 20